National Pay Commission Of Bangladesh 3zr

Introduction istrative reforms since Bangladesh’s independence appear to be veritable obsession of every successive government. An istrative reform entails a total disregard of efficiency. The bureaucratic culture continues to affect the functioning of the civil services in Bangladesh. The bureaucracy is still characterized by centralization of authority at the top of the hierarchy. In the first time of the Awami League rule(1972-1975), the government appointed two major committees in 1972 such as The istrative and Services Reorganization Committee(ASRC),one of them National Pay Commission(NPC).The committee or commission was entrusted with the responsibility of suggesting measures towards reorganizing the central bureaucracy. The National Pay Commission play vital role for government personnel.

Objective of the study The focus of this paper is to show how National Pay Commission helps & ensures good services . In the study the following objectives are mainly focused. To know basic conduct & ingredient of NPC. To identify the problem . Highlighting prospects of NPC.

Significant of the study •

To obtain clear concept about the structure, mission, problems and prospects of National Pay Commission.

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To find out the inadequacies and anomalies in the pay structure in the era of different governments.

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To show the disparity between the highest and the lowest salary level.

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To focus on the demand and supply of various professions and occupations.

National Pay Commission in Mujib Era : The Mujib Government National Pay Commission was appointed on 21 July 1972 under the chairmanship of retired secretary to the government. BesideTime base member – Full time-3 - Part time-5 The full times background in-Banking -Police -Technical Education The time background -Public Servants Excepting one representing such organization as the -The Planning Commission -The Ministry of Finance -The Ministry of Defense -and the house building corporation A senior civil servant5s belonging to the erstwhile CSP was made ecretary to the NPC-1

Mission in NPC-1: (a) Reviewing the pay structure of all employees in the public sector keeping in view the government’s policy of socialism (b) Recommending rationalization and standardization of pay scale of those who served under erstwhile central and provincial governments.(Report of NPC -1,1973,P.1)

Diagnosis The NPC-1 was given a difficult job ,one the other hand it would attract the best possible candidates but requirement of merger at the disposal of the government and the need to minimize the gap between the highest and the lowest income group in the society. The NPC-1 found a number of inadequacies & anomalies in the pay structure. The commission identified as many as 2200 different scales of pay throughout the government. The situation was further complicated by diversity that

existed in rates of increment & efficiency bars for similarly classified jobs. (khan.1991.p.54)

Outcome The NPC -1 were partially implemented. We try to identified such outcome Firstly: Compression of 2200 scales into 10 scales was very difficult task & it proved to be so at the implementation stage. Secondly: The NPC-1 recommendations were not based on proper evaluation of responsibilities of a particular scale & the corresponding pay .Its a ‘supervisory’ posts were downgraded scales in of pay & equalized with the grades of the supervised ,creating deleterious effects on efficiency, morale & performance. (Report of Pay & Service Commisson,1977,p.8) Recommendation NPC -1 in recommending rational pay structure were a livable wage, social acceptability, functionally distinguishable levels of responsibility matched with standardized pay levels & motivation based on patriotic grounds The NPC -1 recommended ten scales of pay to suit the ten service grades proposed by the ASRC. (Khan, 1991,p.59)

Pay and services commission of Ziaur Rahman: The pay and services commission (P&SC): The pay and services commission was set up on 20 February 1976. It was composed three including the chairman. It was headed by a retired secretary to the government. There were fulltime and part time as well as departmental representatives. Four were part time and all of t them were retired senior civil servants with background in civil finance police and judicial services. Of the three part times one was a senior secretary to the government, another was a retired chief engineer and the last one is came from the private sector. There were four departmental representatives. They represented the ministries of industries, Education and Establishment division &planning commission.

Mission of the commission: The pay and services commission was asked to: 1. Examine the existing pay and services structure of public sector employees excluding the defense services but including the civilians paid out of defense estimates and the employees of autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies, statutory corporations, the universities and nationalized enterprises excluding workers. 2. Recommend a suitable service structure for the civil servants along with their recruitment training and development. 3. Devise rational and simple principle for the amalgamation of the employee of the erstwhile central and provincial government s performing similar duties and functions; 4. Recommend suitable pay structure including fringe benefits for civil services and employee of autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies, statutory corporations, universities and nationalized enterprises. In making its recommendations pertaining to pay the commission was instructed to take into consideration a numbers of factors including: a. Functional needs and requirements of the government; b. Job requirement for various services and posts; c. Cost of living; d. Resources of the government and public sector enterprises; e. Reduction of disparities between the highest and the lowest salary level; f. Attracting and retaining highly talented, trained, professionally and technically qualified persons in the public sectors; g. Maintenance of efficiency, equality and incentives for work.

Outcomes of the commission:

The government moved slowly and contagiously and it took two years to implement in modified forms the commission accepted recommendations. Five cabinet committees worked out the modalities of reform implementation. The government in 1977 provided for twenty one scales of pay through the introduction of new national grades and scales of pay(NNGSP) . In this process the government drastically scales down the number.

Significant recommendation: a. All purpose of civil service had to be built with individual possessing technical and scientific qualification as well as those who were intellectually gifted capable of working under political direction. b. Merit should be the sole determinant for appointment in the civil service and advancements there in and a system should be devised to ensure proper identification for meritorious one. c. 52 scales of pay were recommended to reduce the multiplicity of pay scales as well as

to allow alternative scales for particular categories without distributing the overall pay structure.

National Pay Commission (NPC – II) in Ershad era A fifteen member national pay commission (NPC – II) was appointed in May 1984. The National Pay Commission (II) was headed by a justice of the Supreme Court. The hip of the commission had 2 types: 1) Full time hip 2) Part time hip

1) The full time are :•

A former vice chancellor of Bangladesh University of Engineering And Technology.

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A retired Secretary of the government

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A former member of the planning commission

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Senior civil servants

Among the part time are:

A Secretary of the government

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A retired secretary

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President of the federation of the chambers of commerce and industry

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Chartered ant

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A Professor of medicine of Dhaka medical college

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Managing director of a commercial bank

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A retired educationist

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A representative of the ministry of finance

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University grant commission

Mission: The NPC-II’s responsibilities include: a) To recommend suitable pay structure for officers & employees of government, semi government & autonomous bodies. b) To recommend other benefits including salaries, medical allowances, conveyance allowances or arrangements. c) To formulate suitable principles for prefixing salaries, allowance and retirements allowances from time to time considering changes in the price of commodities. d) To recommend suitable retirement allowances for officers & employees ( The Bangladesh Observer, 1 June,1984)

Recommendations:

The NPC-II recommended the highest scale of taka 7500 & the lowest taka 660 in twenty grades along with the fringe benefits including the house rent, medical, conveyance, educational and festival allowances. Outcome The government accepted in principle the major recommendations of the commission. But while implementing the NPC-II recommendations pertaining to pay scale the government made some modifications. The modified new scale of pay (MNSP) which came into effect on June 1, 1985 was the result of NPC– II’s recommendations. The MNSP fixed the lowest salary at taka 500 and highest at taka 6000 with a differential of 12: 1 between the highest and lowest pay. National Pay Commission (NPC- III) A National Pay Commission (NPC-III) was appointed in August, 1989. The commission was headed by a former secretary. The of the NPC-III were: 

A former ambassador

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A retired secretary

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A senior army officer

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A senior civil servant

The last member was designated to act as the secretary to the commission in addition to his duty as a member.

Member: The commission’s purview include all categories of public employees of the traditional public sector as well as autonomous organizations. Outcomes The government accepted the commission’s recommendations and a revised National scale of pay (RNSP) was announced in September 1991. The RNSP which is still operational contains twenty scales of pay with taka 900 fixed as the minimum salary & taka 10000 as the maximum salary per month. (Bangladesh Gazette Extraordinary, 14th September, 1991). It has been observed that since Bangladesh’s independence for the first time RNSP contained a revised pay scale which was at per with the then inflation rate to prevent standard of living from further erosion (Obaidullah, 1995, p. 153).

It needs to be pointed out that though the government agreed on twenty scales of pay but NPCIII’s recommendation relating to highest & lowest pay of taka 13000 & 1250 respectively was substantially moderated during implementation & resultant RNSP.

National Pay Commission - IV (NPC-IV) in Sheikh Hasina Era The National Pay Commission-IV (NPC-IV) was appointed in June 1996. The commission consists of fifteen including the chairman. There were two types of member1) Full time member 2) Part time member 1) Full time member: Of the three are full timer. The full timer and the chairman are all retired civil servants. 2) Part time member: Rest of the are part time . The part time include•

An economist from the university of Dhaka

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President of the Bangladesh Employers Association

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A member of the Planning commission

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A retired professor of Dhaka Medical College

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A former chairman of Capital Development Authority

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A former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank

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A well known gynecologist

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A representative of the army

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A representative each from the ministries of industry, law and finance with the rank of the t secretary. (The Daily Janakantha,19 August)

A t secretary of the ministry of finance will act as member- secretary to the commission. Though all the full time are retired civil servants still some of the part time

have been chosen from different professional and other groups. But it needs to be mentioned that all the representatives of three ministries and member-secretary are serving civil servants. So, the civil servants-retired and serving have a comfortable majority in of hip of the commission. Mission 1) An appropriate pay structure for officials and employees. 2) Other facilities, i.e. house rent, medical treatment, transportation that are outside pay. 3) An appropriate policy guideline for refixing pay allowances and pension of civil servants in view of changes in the prices of commodities. 4) Appropriate pension benefits for officials and employees. Recommendations The commission submits its recommendations to the government according to its pre structural mission. These are following : •

Twenty pay scales with the lowest pay being Tk. 1800 and highest pay fixed at Tk. 18000.

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Doubling of medical and conveyance allowances for all categories of all public servants.

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Ministry of finance has been allocated Tk. 15000 crores in the next budget to meet the expenditure in implementing the recommendations of the commission.