Fund crisis: Non-govt teachers, employees not getting retirement benefits

The retirement benefit board is quite unable to pay the due benefits of the retired non-government teachers and employees because of fund shortage which is causing immense sufferings to them, sources said.
According to the board, some 32,053 applications of the retired non-government teachers and employees have remained pending since early 2011.  
"We've cleared the benefits of the retired teachers and employees until February 2011", a senior official at the board said, preferring anonymity.
He said the board requires some Tk 11 billion to process the rest of the received applications, but there is not such a big fund in its account at present.
In addition to this, the retirement board needs Tk 560 million every month, whereas it gets only Tk 170 million from the community people, making an annual deficit of Tk 4.68 billion.
"The community people share only 4.0 per cent of their monthly salary with the board which is hardly enough to process 33 per cent of regularly received applications from them," the official said.
He told the FE that the board had sent a number of letters to the ministry concerned seeking immediate allocation of the required fund. However, they are yet to get response from the ministry in this connection.
"The government should allocate a 'block amount' for the payment of their overdues; otherwise it will be delayed further as the existing deficit will go up gradually," he said.
Once the board receives the amount, it will require more or less two months to process all the received applications, he added.
On a recent visit to the Non Government Teacher Employee Retirement Benefit Board, this correspondent found that a good number of elderly people came to the board from across the country to have information about their applications.
According to one of them, even some have died of illness or because of age-burden during the lengthy process as the authorities require about four years to provide their due benefits after the submission of applications.
"My husband died of cancer recently", said Halima Khatun, who came to the board. She added that her late husband applied for the benefits in August 2011.
The ill-fated widow also alleged that the board authorities often provide benefits to some influential applicants breaking the normal serial that causes further sufferings to the general benefit-seekers.
Abdul Haque, a retired madrasah teacher, who came from Jessore, said he applied to the board in June 2012 for his benefits, but the authorities are yet to response in this connection.
Refuting the allegation of any breach in the serial, Chairman of the board Asadul Haque said it is true that some influential quarters including high-profile political leaders and government and non-government officials often push them to process certain applications on a priority basis but they do not give in to such pressure.
The board cahirman said apart from the regular payment, the board also considers two other criteria to process the applications in advance - for illness like cancer, kidney damage and serious heart attack of the applicants and for Hajj pilgrims.   
"We strictly follow the regular procedure to distribute the retirement fund," he said adding that they have to maintain strict regulations to process the applications.
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