Implementing new pay scale for public servants

There is no question that workers' pay hike or demand for it is part of the job culture. But such a hike is always based on the increase in the earnings of the organisation concerned. In the case of the government, it is from the revenue earnings that demands for such pay raises are met. From that perspective, one needs to assess the new pay scale for public servants. The National Pay Commission (NPC) 2025, which is now engaged in the difficult task of preparing a new pay scale, has reportedly made an initial estimate that the government will require a whopping sum of about Tk 700 billion annually to accommodate the raises in pensions, gratuities and medical allowances. However, one commission member has described the estimate as a 'ballpark' figure, meaning that it is not an exact number.
The NPC, which is unlike a host of other commissions that the interim government had formed early this year, will have to review and recommend pay raises for public servants by November 30 next. Understandably, it is a race against time for the NPC to complete its task within such a short time. Though preliminary estimate, the figure is too big. Even a figure a bit smaller than the NPC's estimated Tk 700 billion will be difficult for the government to arrange. The preliminary estimate is equivalent to around one quarter of the country's annual earnings in tax revenue. It is more so when the country's revenue board is more often than not failing to fulfil its annual revenue collection targets, thanks to high inflation, sustained erosion of income of fixed income groups, overall slump in business activities, to name but a few of the negative factors impacting performance of the economy. Worse yet, traditionally every time a new pay scale for government officials is announced, the prices of essential commodities in the kitchen market go up.
Unfortunately, the economy has not been doing well. Actually, the economy has been in the doldrums during the last one and a half decades, despite the claims of miraculous growth to the contrary. Such claims, everyone knows, were based on fake, made-to-order, figures to suit the purpose of the powers that be. Can a section of bureaucracy wash its hands of that legacy? Did the autocracy not reward the public servants complicit in its power abuse, massive corruption and other misdeeds, among other means, through irrational pay hikes?
Notably, the inflation in 2015 rose following introduction of the eighth pay scale for public servants and it began to surge since March 2023. One may also recall here how a section of civil bureaucracy in the past broke their code of conduct with impunity and came out openly in the name of 'servants of the republic' to serve partisan interests. Unsurprisingly, the overall quality of performance and professionalism among public servants began to fall since. The new pay commission needs to be sensitive to all these issues and their impacts on the economy to recommend the raises in the new pay scale, which the finance ministry itself termed ambitious. As the pay commission added that it was a 'guesstimate', the final figure for the new pay scale may then see a further rise which may overshoot the present fiscal limit. In that case, given the limited mandate and time in its hand, the interim administration would be well-advised to leave the tricky issue of implementing the new pay scale to the discretion of the next elected government.