Staff Reporter:

The full implementation of the ninth national pay scale is likely to be delayed further as the secretarial committee has yet to finalise its recommendations.

A closed-door meeting was held on Wednesday at the Cabinet Division conference room with Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Gani in the chair. However, the committee could not finalise its recommendations on the implementation of the new pay scale.

Although the new pay scale is scheduled to take effect from July 1, officials said the publication of the gazette may take more time. Around 2.1 million government employees are expected to receive basic salary benefits in the first phase, while other allowances and benefits may be implemented in later phases.

According to Finance Division sources, Wednesday’s meeting discussed various challenges related to implementation, including the government’s financial constraints, possible stages of execution and technical details. The committee will submit its recommendations to the government, based on which the pay scale will be implemented in phases.

As the recommendations were not finalised, the secretarial committee is expected to meet again next week.

Meanwhile, a delegation from the IMF has been visiting Dhaka since July 12. The team met with Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury. The delegation opposed the implementation of the new pay scale amid the ongoing financial crisis. This will further increase the purchasing power of a group. As a result, the IMF believes that it will become more difficult to reduce inflationary pressures.

Sources said that Wednesday’s meeting also discussed the 20 grades included in the new pay scale recommended by the Pay Commission. There, opinions were also expressed on whether the number of grades can be increased or decreased.

According to the recommendation, the salary of the 20th grade will be Tk 48,400. And the salary of the first grade has been set at Tk 1,60,000 (fixed).

Finance Department Secretary Dr. Khairuzzaman Majumder told that, “It is their freedom to decide how much time it will take or how many meetings it will hold. They are working on it. We will take the next step after receiving their recommendations.”

He thinks that some more time may be needed for this.

Sources in the finance department say that although the new pay scale was announced by the interim government, the current BNP government is quite sincere in implementing it. For this, Tk 89,836 crore has been allocated for the salaries and allowances of government officials and employees in the budget for the newly started 2026-27 fiscal year.

The total allocation including pension and gratuity stands at Tk 1,41,434 crore. An additional financial provision of about Tk 44,000 crore has been made for the partial implementation of the new pay scale, benefits for teachers and employees under MPO, and comprehensive benefits for pensioners.

Sources say that due to the current global context and financial crisis, the IMF has questioned whether the government has enough revenue resources to implement such a high-rate pay structure at the moment.

The organization believes that if the salary structure is fully implemented without fixing the source of funding, the crisis may worsen. The organization has expressed concern that inflationary pressure may increase.

Meanwhile, the government is struggling to calculate the basic salary and benefits increase of the ninth national pay scale for government employees! The high-level committee formed for this purpose has not been able to finalize the recommendations for implementation despite repeated meetings. Some cuts will be made almost out of necessity.

For this, changes are being made to the basic salary and other benefits and allowances in the recommended grades.

At the same time, in the current situation, the implementation of the proposed pay scale can be done in three phases. Although some technical problems have arisen in this. After overcoming those difficulties, the secretary committee will recommend implementation in three phases.

In the first phase, the basic salary will be increased. Later, the government will implement other benefits. However, government employees will receive salaries and allowances accordingly by showing the implementation of the new pay scale from July 1.

In 2025, the National Pay Commission, formed under the leadership of former Finance Secretary Zakir Ahmed Khan during the rule of the interim government, recommended an increase in the salaries of government officials and employees by 100 to 142 percent.

Accordingly, it was proposed to increase the minimum salary from 8,250 to 20,000 taka and the maximum salary to 160,000 taka. However, due to the changing economic reality, the current government did not accept that recommendation in full.

After the current government came to power, a high-level committee was formed under the leadership of Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Ghani. The committee prepared a new draft considering the country’s revenue, inflation, budget deficit, government expenditure and the overall economic situation. Currently, the work of finalizing the gazette is underway based on that draft.