New pay structure for govt officials will be presented before cabinet soon

The government is continuing work on the proposed Ninth Pay Commission for public sector employees. Once the process is complete, it will place the proposal before the Cabinet without delay. Following Cabinet approval, the government will begin issuing the official gazette notification.

Finance and Planning Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury made the remarks to Prothom Alo at the Secretariat on Wednesday.

On 21 April, the government formed a 10-member committee, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Ghani, to recommend the implementation of a new pay structure for public sector employees.

According to sources at the Finance Division under the Ministry of Finance, the committee has almost finalised its recommendations.

The committee includes the Principal Secretary to the prime minister, the Finance Secretary, the Public Administration Secretary, the Law Secretary, the Defence Secretary, the Secondary and Higher Education Secretary, the Health Services Secretary, the Principal Staff Officer of the Armed Forces Division, and the Comptroller General of Accounts.

A delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited Dhaka from 12 to 16 July and held meetings with the finance minister and other relevant officials.

During the visit, the IMF delegation advised the government to strengthen revenue collection. It also sought information on the introduction of the Family Card programme and the sources of funding for implementing the new pay structure for public sector employees.

Bangladesh's $5.5 billion loan programme with the IMF, structured to be disbursed in seven instalments, began on 30 January 2023. The programme has not progressed after the country received five instalments.

However, Bangladesh and the IMF are currently discussing a new loan programme worth more than $4 billion. The two sides are expected to continue those discussions during the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings in Washington this October.

When asked on Wednesday whether implementing the new pay structure could affect Bangladesh's chances of securing a new IMF loan, the finance minister said, "The IMF loan has no connection with the new pay structure. Work is continuing. We will introduce the new pay structure, and issuing the gazette notification will not take much longer."

The minister also said he did not wish to comment on the matter every other day. "Different media outlets are reporting the issue in different ways. Let them. I will speak about it once," he said.

A senior Finance Division official said the IMF had not made any direct comments on implementing the new pay structure and had no mandate to do so.

Instead, the organisation had sought clarification on how the government would finance the measure and had advised the government to strengthen revenue collection if it intended to implement the new pay structure.

Nearly 12 years after the Eighth Pay Commission, the interim government established the 23-member Ninth National Pay Commission on 27 July 2025.

The commission submitted its report to the then Chief Adviser, Professor Muhammad Yunus, on 21 January this year. Former Finance Secretary Zakir Ahmed Khan chaired the commission.

The commission recommended retaining the existing 20 pay grades while increasing salaries and allowances by between 100 and 140 per cent.

It proposed raising the minimum basic salary from Tk 8,250 to Tk 20,000. It also recommended increasing the highest basic salary from Tk 78,000 to Tk 160,000.

At the time, the commission estimated that the government currently spends Tk 1.31 trillion (131,000 crore) on approximately 1.4 million (14 lakh) public sector employees and 900,000 pensioners.

It also estimated that implementing the new pay structure would require an additional Tk 1.06 trillion (106,000 crore).

To implement the recommendations, the committee led by Nasimul Ghani initially proposed introducing the new pay structure over three financial years and later revised the proposal to two financial years.

The committee members ultimately agreed to implement the revised basic salaries during the current financial year and the revised allowances in the following financial year.

Meanwhile, while presenting the national budget in Parliament on 11 June, the Finance Adviser announced that the government would begin implementing the new pay structure for public sector employees from 1 July.

In his budget speech, he said, "Public sector employees have been receiving salaries and allowances under the same pay structure for nearly 11 years. During this period, inflation has significantly increased the cost of living. Therefore, the government will implement the new pay structure in phases from 1 July."

The economic analysis of the operational and development expenditure in the proposed budget for the 2026–27 financial year allocated Tk 898.36 billion (89,836 crore) for salaries and allowances of public officials and employees.

This allocation is only marginally higher than the revised allocation for the 2025–26 financial year.

Under the “Net Public Administration” sector in the “Use of resources in the operational and development budget” section, the proposed budget allocated Tk 1.41434 trillion (141,434 crore), representing an increase of Tk 545.72 billion (54,572 crore) compared with the revised allocation for the current financial year.

According to Finance Division officials, the government has earmarked at least Tk 440 billion (44,000 crore) of this additional allocation for public sector employees, teachers under the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme, and pensioners.