New pay scale: three months' arrears with this month's salary, allowances unchanged

Pay fixation for government employees under the new pay scale has already been completed. Since 5 October, employees have been updating their information in iBAS, and they will now receive the additional money for the previous three months as arrears along with this month's salary.

Allowances, however, are not increasing. In a recently issued notification, the Finance Division said the allowance rates in effect on 30 June will remain in place for now.

The decision covers employees of ministries, divisions, directorates, offices, agencies, and state-owned and autonomous institutions.

Under the new pay structure, the minimum basic salary for government employees has been set at 20,000 taka, while the maximum basic salary is 156,000 taka.

AKM Abdul Awwal Mazumdar, a former secretary of the Public Administration Training Centre, said that without stronger monitoring and strict action against the corrupt, those who engage in corruption would continue even if the monthly salary were raised to one crore taka, while those who do not engage in corruption would not do so anyway.

He said raising salaries was a good step and very necessary, but the corrupt must now be caught; otherwise the idea that higher pay alone will reduce corruption is entirely illusory.

Dr Toufik Ahmed Chowdhury, a former director general of BIBIM, said the impact of the decision would not be the same for everyone and would vary. Government officials number two or three hundred thousand against a national population of 170 million, he said, so the money supply would not rise enough to cause inflation.

He added that the money supply would increase somewhat, but not to a level where inflation could be explained as a result of this decision; rather, its effect falls on the whole economy, and there should be coordination between the private and public sectors.

Alongside implementing the new pay structure, analysts are also stressing regular evaluation of how much benefit it is actually delivering.