Anisul Islam Noor :
The implementation of new pay scale may be delayed as the public universities’ teachers and Class III and IV government employees have rejected the proposed pay structure.
All of them have submitted separate charters of demands to the government.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith recently said that the new pay structure recommended by the secretary level committee was under examination. It would take one more month to complete the work pending the cabinet’s approval, he said.
Meanwhile Public University teachers have demanded a separate pay structure for themselves and further review of the proposed pay structure. The Class III and IV employees of the government rejected the proposed pay structure saying that the salaries it proposed would be insufficient to support a family of six. The low paid employees demanded that their basic salaries should be at least doubled.
They have also demanded retention of timescales and selection grades, which automatically increase their
grades and enhance their salaries. It’s a humiliating to place a public university professor below a secretary, said Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers’ Association president Farid Uddin Ahmed.
A senior professor should get the status and benefits equal to senior secretary, he said. He added that the discriminatory pay and benefits offered by the proposed pay structure shocked 15,000 teachers of 37 public universities. The new pay structure would create imbalance in pay and disparity between the university teachers and the civil servants, he said.
Farid said joint secretaries and officers above them get car loans and each of them is also paid Tk45,000 per month to maintain the car. He said the teachers would form human chains at public universities across the country on June 28 to press their demands including car facilities.
The Class III and IV employees threatened that they would hold agitations across the country from July 1 unless their demands were met. The National Pay Commission headed by Farash Uddin Ahmed created a new controversy with its recommendation to place the secretaries above Grade-1 which tops the 20-grade pay structure. But the secretary-level committee headed by the cabinet secretary did not support this recommendation. The secretary level committee favoured maintenance of the status quo, said Public Administration Ministry Senior Secretary Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury. The secretary level committee supported abolition of the selection grade and timescales for government employees as recommended by the pay commission, he said. The secretary-level committee recommended fixing the maximum salary at Tk90,000 and the lowest basic pay at Tk 8,250. It placed officers enjoying the rank of secretary at Grade I with a monthly consolidated pay of Tk 75,000. But for secretary in a ministry or division it recommended a consolidated monthly salary of Tk78,000 creating further disparities. The cabinet secretary, the principal secretary and the senior secretaries have been placed above the 20-grade pay structure. The Bangladesh Government Employees Coordination Council, representing the Class III and IV employees demanded retention of timescales and selection grades and the minimum basic pay of Tk18,000. In a five-point charter of demands it also demanded reduction of the gap between the highest and the lowest pay. It demanded cutting down pay slabs to 10 from 20. Asked for comments, Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said that the proposed pay structure envisaged an average pay hike of 60 per cent and would reduce the disparities.
The Class III and IV employees would hold demonstrations in all districts from July 1 unless their demands were met, said Bangladesh Government Employees Coordination Council secretary general Nomanuzzaman Al Azad.
He said that over 12 lakh government employees rejected the proposed pay structure. Bangladesh Sarkari Karmachari Oikya Forum, another platform of low paid government employees, announced it would hold a rally in Dhaka on July 27 on the demand of setting the lowest basic pay at Tk16,000 and rationalizing of the salary structure.
