Ehsanul Haque Jasim :The government has approved the new pay-scale for the country’s public servants; fixing the basic salary of the Grade-1 officials at Tk. 78,000 while that of Grade-20 employees at Tk. 8,250. Under the new pay-scale, the public servants will now receive their monthly salary almost double. The approval for the ‘Eighth National Pay Scale’ came from the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet held at the Bangladesh Secretariat on Monday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. “The new Grade-20 scale will be effective from July 1, 2015 while the basic salaries along with allowances will be effective from July 1, 2016. A New Year allowance has also been introduced in the pay-scale for the first time,” Cabinet Secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said while briefing newsmen after the meeting. He said, “The teachers of non-government educational institutions will also receive salary and allowances under the new pay-scale from July 1 last. A gazette notification will be issued in this connection shortly.”The Cabinet Secretary also said that a separate pay scale for the Armed Forces was also approved in the Cabinet meeting.According to the officials, the Cabinet approved the new pay scale in line with the recommendations of the National Pay and Services Commission 2013, Armed Forces Pay Committee 2013 and the Review Committee on the pay commission. The Review Committee in its report agreed with the pay commission’s recommendation for abolishing the provisions of selection grade and time-scale. Bhuiyan said that the public servants would get more benefit from the new pay-scale despite of abolishing the provisions, as the salaries have been increased more. “The provisions were discriminatory. Some public servants could get benefit from the provisions, while some others were not under these. The salaries now increased for all,” he said. The National Pay and Service Commission, headed by former Bangladesh Bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin, made its recommendations on December 21 last year. It had proposed the new pay scale with basic salary ranging from Tk 8,200 to Tk 80,000. However it had suggested cutting down the number of grades to 16 from the 20. But the secretary-level committee revised it to 20 grades. On May 13, the secretary-level committee examined the recommendations and lowered the top basic pay to Tk. 75,000 and raised the minimum to Tk. 8,250. Later, the Finance Ministry evaluated the secretarial recommendations and sent it to the Cabinet for the final nod. The last Pay Commission was formed in 2007 during the post-1/11 caretaker regime, and the last time public servants got a hike was on July 1, 2009. At the time, Tk 40,000 was highest basic pay and Tk 4,100 lowest.Meanwhile, teachers of country’s public universities have been opposing the ‘Eighth National Pay Scale’ from the very beginning. They termed it ‘disgraceful and discriminatory’. Protesting the pay hike, the teachers of 37 public universities have already organised various programmes along with work abstention. They have been demanding separate pay scales for public varsity teachers. In this backdrop, the teachers are scheduled to observe full day work abstention today (Tuesday). They have decided not to hold any class and examination scheduled for today. The university teachers will also hold a view-exchange meeting with editors of the print and electronic media on September 10 and they will hold a rally at the foot of Oparajeo Bangla of Dhaka University with work abstention on September 13. They will hand over a memorandum containing signatures of the teachers to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers’ Association (FBUTA), the platform of teachers of country’s 37 public universities, announced the programme.Prof Dr Farid Uddin, President of the FBUTA, said they would announce tougher programme if the government does pay heed to their demand. “The bureaucrats humiliated university teachers by giving biased recommendation for the pay scale. We have been staging agitations since May 14 in 2015 to tell the government that the eighth pay scale is against the interest of the public university teachers. If our demand is not met immediately, teachers from all 37 public universities will launch a tougher programme,” he said. Prof Mesbah Kamal of the History Department of Dhaka University said that the teachers in India get higher salary than government secretaries, and but it is different in Bangladesh. It is discriminatory. The demands of the university teachers are – same salary and allowance for senior professors as senior secretaries and same pay scale for professors and secretaries, ensuring university teacher’s status in accordance with their expected pay scale in the state’s warrant of precedence, provision of cars and other allowances for them like the bureaucrats.
