Finance Minister Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury has formally announced the implementation of a new pay scale for government employees, saying the ninth pay scale will be rolled out in stages from the start of the fiscal year — 1 July. In his 2026-27 budget speech on Thursday he said: “Government employees have been receiving pay and allowances under the same pay scale for nearly 11 years. Living costs have meanwhile risen sharply because of inflation. We are announcing the phased implementation of a new pay scale for government employees from 1 July 2026.”
Under the eighth pay scale the minimum basic pay is 8,250 taka and the maximum 78,000 taka (fixed); the ninth pay scale recommends a minimum of 20,000 taka and a maximum of 1,60,000 taka. A 10-member committee led by Cabinet Secretary Nasimul Gani was formed on 21 April to review the ninth National Pay Commission’s recommendations, and it recommended implementing the pay scale in three phases — the recommendation being implemented from the coming fiscal year, according to the finance division. When submitting its recommendations, pay-commission head Zakir Ahmed Khan said an extra 1,06,000 crore taka would be needed to implement the proposals.
How much is allocated? Each year’s budget contains a section, “Budget Brief Statement 2(b),” present again this time, showing an “economic analysis of operating and development expenditure,” with allocations split into officers’ salaries, employees’ salaries, and allowances. For the coming fiscal year these three together come to 89,836 crore taka, against 85,651 crore in the current 2025-26 revised budget — a rise of 4,185 crore taka. Statement 4 gives an “economic analysis of operating expenditure,” similarly split three ways, showing a slightly lower 89,380 crore taka in pay and allowances for 2026-27, against 84,739 crore in the current revised budget. So where is the money for the new pay scale the minister announced from 1 July shown? Speaking with finance-division officials involved in budget preparation gave a sense of it: it lies mainly in Budget Brief Statement 2(a), which shows the use of resources in the operating and development budgets. There, the “public administration-net” allocation for the coming year is 1,41,434 crore taka, against 86,862 crore in the current 2025-26 revised budget — a rise of 54,572 crore taka. Finance-division officials say at least 44,000 crore taka of that 54,572 crore is set aside for the partial implementation of the new pay scale for government employees, MPO-listed teachers and pensioners.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report