Finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed on Tuesday said that the interim government was considering providing dearness allowance to the public officials and employees.
He made the disclosure after meetings of the advisory council on government purchases and economic affairs at the secretariat.
Asked to comment whether the announcement would be made during the announcement of the upcoming budget, the finance adviser said that he would not say anything in this regard then.聽聽聽聽聽聽聽
The finance adviser revealed that a committee had been working on the issue.
Salehuddin is scheduled to announce the national budget on June 2 on the television in the absence of Jatiya Sangsad that remains dissolved since the ouster of the Awami League regime on August 5 in the wake of a popular uprising.
Within four months after assuming power, the interim government appointed a committee to work out聽 ways to provide dearness allowance to the public employees amid the serious resource constraints left behind by the AL regime.
The seven-member committee is headed by the principal secretary to the chief adviser Muhammad Yunus.
An allocation of Tk 81,510 crore has been earmarked in the current non-development budget worth Tk 4,90,936 crore for paying salaries and allowances to the government officers and employees, according to the budget document.
Finance Division officials said that the amount would reach Tk 84,000 crore in the revised budget of the outgoing 2024-25 financial year because of the promotions of over 1,000 officials and employees in the past nine months.
They also said that the collection of revenue by the National Board of Revenue until March amounted to Tk 2,56,486 crore against the target of Tk 3,22,151 crore.
The interim government has already slashed more than Tk 49,000 crore from the annual development budget to reduce the pressure on bank borrowing.
The finance adviser told the reporters that they would fix the amount for the dearness allowance and the time to start its implementation after discussing the matter with the policymakers.
It has already been calculated by the Finance Division officials that a 20 per cent dearness allowance would cost at least an extra Tk 7,000 crore per year.
In 2015, the government gave the latest pay scale for the government employees, almost doubling their salaries.
The employees also receive a 5 per cent increment of their basic salary every year.
The recently released 鈥榃hite Paper on the State of Bangladesh economy鈥� described that the pay hike in 2015 was intended to appease the bureaucracy that aided the government in rigging the 2014 elections.
An announcement of a 20 per cent dearness allowance amid pressure from the bureaucrats had been planned by the ousted Awami League government before the placement of the budget in June 2024.
But the plan was dropped at the last minute due to the resource crunch and the macroeconomic crisis that forced the AL to take a $4.7 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund.
Earlier, the finance adviser, while presiding over the meetings of the advisory council on economic affairs and government purchases, approved a number of proposals.
The finance adviser said that they had approved a proposal in principle for procuring wheat on G2G basis to meet the country鈥檚 growing demand for the grain by reducing the timeframe of the Public Procurement Rules, 2008.
However, the council did not approve a proposal to buy 26 cars at prices higher than the ceiling stated in the Public Procurement Rules, 2008.
The advisory council on government purchases also approved the procurement of 70,000 tonnes of fertiliser and one cargo of liquefied natural gas.
The Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation will import 40,000 tonnes of diammonium phosphate from Morocco on G-to-G negotaition at Tk 324 crore and the Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation will buy 30,000 tonnes of urea from Karnaphuli Fertiliser Company Limited at Tk 152 crore.
M/S Gunvor Singapore Pte Ltd will supply the one cargo of LNG at Tk 586 crore.
This will be the 28th LNG cargo under the current financial year of 2024-25.
The advisory council also approved a proposal for buying blank smart cards at Tk 406 crore through the direct purchase method for the 鈥業dentification System for Enhancing Access to Services (phase-II)鈥� project.