Pahela Baishakh will now bring greater happiness for government employees in Bangladesh. The government has announced a festival allowance for the Bengali New Year for all its employees to be calculated at 20 percent of the basic pay. The announcement came along with the approval of the eight national pay scale at a regular cabinet meeting in the Secretariat on Monday led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “A new allowance has been introduced for the Bengali new year,” Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said after the meet. “There were allowances for religious festivals, but there was no instance of people of all religions getting the same allowance at the same time.” Until now, government officials were getting two festival bonus on their basic pay. Muslims would get it during Eid, Hindus during Durga Puja while officials of other religions would get it during their religious festivals. –bdnews24.com
