Secretary Committee recommends up to 100 percent rise in government salaries

The Secretary Committee has recommended a maximum increase of one hundred percent in the basic salaries of government employees under the new pay structure. The rise will not be uniform across all grades and may vary higher or lower depending on the scale.

The panel has also proposed implementing the new structure in two phases, with only the basic salary provided in the first year and allowances, including house rent, introduced the following year.

The recommendation emerged from the final meeting of the National Pay Commission-2025 Recommendation Formulation Committee held on Wednesday.

A committee member, speaking to Daily Samakal on condition of anonymity, said all members signed the final report on the salary increase during the last session of the Recommendation Formulation Committee.

The panel unanimously agreed to raise the basic salaries of employees from grades one to twenty by a maximum of one hundred percent. The new structure is expected to take effect over the next two years, though the cabinet retains the authority to modify it.

The Finance Division is scheduled to place the proposal before the cabinet next week after obtaining the Prime Minister’s consent.

The last national pay scale for government employees was announced in 2015. Since then, basic salaries have been raised annually by a fixed five percent, but no new scale has been introduced. After the current government assumed office, a committee was formed to re-examine the matter. Discussions during the review focused on calculating salary increases based on the Pay Commission’s report.

Ministerial panel may cause further delay

A ten-member committee headed by Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Gani was formed on twenty-one April to review the Pay Commission’s recommendations. After a four-month review, the committee finalised its report on Wednesday. However, last Thursday the government constituted a separate seven-member committee led by Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury to examine the Judicial Service Pay Commission 2025 report and formulate recommendations. As a result, even though the secretary committee has completed its work, implementation of the ninth pay scale may face additional delay due to the new ministerial-level panel.

A member of the secretary committee, also speaking anonymously, said the panel’s primary task was to examine the reports of the National Pay Commission 2025, the Bangladesh Judicial Service Pay Commission 2025 and the Armed Forces Pay Committee 2025, and to make recommendations for further action. “We have submitted recommendations covering everyone, including the judicial service. I do not understand why another committee was formed despite this,” the member said.

Former Finance Secretary Mohammad Muslim Chowdhury told Daily Samakal that the 2015 pay scale had also been implemented in two phases—salaries in the first year and allowances in the second. He described a phased approach as realistic and said the secretary committee could place both options before the cabinet, which would then decide.

In the budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, approximately eighty-nine thousand eight hundred thirty-six crore taka has been allocated for the salaries and allowances of government officials and employees. Including pension and gratuity, the total stands at one lakh forty-one thousand four hundred thirty-four crore taka.

The Public Administration-Net sector has received an additional fifty-four thousand five hundred seventy-two crore taka compared with the revised budget of the current fiscal year.