The committee of secretaries on Tuesday submitted recommendations to the finance minister regarding a separate pay scale for the employees of the Bangladesh and the four other state-owned commercial banks.

Sources said after the finance minister has given his consent, the recommendations would to the prime minister.

The employees of these banks, however, have been strongly opposing the proposal for separate pay scale saying the general pay scale for the government employees is better for them.

An official of the banking division of the finance ministry said: “Most employees of the state-owned commercial banks Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali and the Bangladesh Bank expressed fears that they would not be able to take enough money back home, resulting in a fall in their living standards. Because under the separate pay scale, they would have to pay income taxes and there would not be some of the key bonuses and allowances.”

Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Tuesday said the government would simultaneously implement the national pay scale for government employees and the separate one for the government banks.

Dr Aslam Alam, secretary of the finance ministry’s Bank and Financial Institutions Division, told Dhaka Tribune: “Implementing the separate pay scale will take time because of two reasons: firstly, most of the employees of Bangladesh Bank and the state owned commercial banks are opposing the move as they want to stay under the purview of the national pay scale.

“Secondly, the Bangladesh Bank is currently under the national pay scale. It will have to come out of that for enabling the implementation of the separate pay scale.

“I have talked to the employees of the state-owned commercial banks and the Bangladesh Bank. They have told me that they were wondering why the government was thinking about implementing a separate pay scale hastily.”

He added that the implementation would not be very easy because the proposed separate pay scale had some issues that needed to be solved.

The committee of secretaries, headed by Cabinet Secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, last month decided that the employees of the government banks would have to pay income taxes and their salaries would rise by Tk2,000.

However, the finance minister had hinted before that the government bank stuffs would get a much bigger hike.

At present, the four government commercial banks have 90,000 employees, while the central bank employs about 6,000, sources said.

News:Dhaka Tribune/06-Nov-2013