Editorial Desk :
Media reports said the long-awaited universal pension scheme is likely to be implemented within six months to a year. Any citizen, including expatriates, aged between 18 and 50 can sign up for the scheme. Experts, however, doubt about the roll out of the scheme in such a short time. It took the government over thirteen years to prepare the strategic paper for the scheme, though this was a pledge of the incumbent government during the 2008 general election manifesto.
According to the outline of the scheme, a beneficiary can start contributing to the scheme with a monthly instalment of Tk 1,000 from the age of 18, and can receive a monthly pension of Tk 64,776 after the age of 60. The relevant law, which is likely to be formulated soon, will govern the whole process, while the draft of the law will be prepared by soliciting opinions from all stakeholders. Once the law is formulated, a full-fledged outline will be visible.
The experts, considering past experiences, said it would be difficult for the
government to start implementing the scheme within a year by formulating a law and establishing the universal pension authority. Since different stakeholders will be involved in the process, we think it will be wise to formulate the law after taking opinions from all stakeholders, including economists so that no loophole is found after the law’s enactment. But if the government makes a hurry to implement the scheme in such a short time, it might not be possible for it to include all beneficiaries initially. Besides, the government must have its fund first if it wants to make the scheme mandatory for all.
It is learnt that the World Bank provided technical assistance to the initiative in light of the best practices from other countries such as India, Malaysia, Sweden and Australia. In particular, the WB makes use of India’s experience in developing the national pension scheme.
