ACCORDING to media reports, the government has, of late, made the gazette notification of the new National Pay Scale on Tuesday last giving effect to the pay rise from January 1, 2016. Implementation of the new pay scale will cost the public exchequer several hundreds of millions taka which will in turn be collected as taxes from the common people. Experts, in their instant reactions, have opined that the new pay packages will benefit the government employees, particularly the encadred bureaucrats, most and it will in effect create a host of anomalies for the non-cadre employees of other state organizations and thus a intense degree of dissatisfaction among the public servants resulting in poor public services delivery. The media reported, the government finalized the eighth pay scale in September that replaced Time Scale and Selection Grade with provision of annual increment of 3.75 percent to 5 percent. The change had triggered widespread protests from the public employees, including teachers. According to the new pay scale, public employees will get salaries of the upper grade at 11th year and 16th year of service. BCS cadres will join public service as eighth grade while non-cadre Class-I officers will get the ninth grade when they join service. But scientists, architects, researchers and many scholars will have to join at a lower grade which will bring dissatisfaction. Besides, the MPO-listed teachers will not get benefit of it now. Unlike the previous seven pay scales, the eighth induced dissatisfaction among the teachers’ community — from the university to school. It may develop a new economic class in terms of income and facilities. The new pay scale exhibited sharp disparity between the educators and the bureaucrats, a retreating step to many. The question arises why the government brought sharp disparity between the teachers’ community and the public employees though the government assured to solve the crisis.While the economy is bleeding severely, the new pay scale may arrange butter for high ranked government employees, only 1.2 million among total employed. The economists are worried about the subsequent inflation which will bend the backbone of the rest.The latest Labour Force Survey, 2010 conducted by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), shows only 4.24 percent out of 4.74 crore (100 percent) labour force in the country is employed in public and defense services. Pay hike for the 4.24 percent will eventually affect the rest of the people who are employed in agriculture, garments, day labour and other formal and non-formal sectors. Moreover, to pay the salary, the government has to increase the tax burden and extend VAT or impose levy that will ultimately cause sufferings to the mass people. We are not against paying a reasonably good pay package to the public servants. Pay rise will not be any relief for people against corruption. Only the few honest officials will be helped to remain honest. Corruption is too widespread to make much sense of pay rise.
