2024-07-14 21:32:00
Those joining the service on or after July 1, 2025, have been made mandatory to participate in the ‘Pratya Scheme’ of the Public Pension Scheme. This information was informed in a press release sent by Gazi Tauhidul Islam, Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Finance on Sunday (July 14).
It said that the Prime Minister inaugurated the Universal Pension Scheme on August 17, 2023 under the Universal Pension Management Act-2023 with the aim of bringing the people of the country to a sustainable pension system. The Government has decided that the employees of all self-governing, autonomous, state-owned and its constituent institutions, including public universities, like government employees, who join the service as new employees on or after July 1, 2025, will compulsorily come under the universal pension scheme.
University teachers and staff are currently agitating for universal pension scheme. In addition to fixing the date of joining the pension scheme on July 1, 2025, it has been declared mandatory for those joining the new job to participate in the ‘Pratya Scheme’.
Earlier, the government had taken initiatives to make the public pension system more comprehensive. As part of this, it has been decided to ensure the old age protection of the country’s elderly population by bringing them under a sustainable and well-organized social security framework. For this purpose, the government has undertaken a project titled ‘Strengthening the Universal Pension System’ to implement the universal pension system nationally.
The cost of this project has been estimated at 325 million US dollars equivalent to 3802 crore 50 lakh taka in Bangladeshi currency. Of this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide project assistance of USD 250 million, while the remaining USD 75 million will be provided from the government treasury, sources from the finance department said.
According to sources, the Preliminary Development Project Proposal (PDPP) of the project has been sent to the Ministry of Planning for approval. After getting the approval of the Prime Minister, the work of the project will start. Recently, through a letter from ERD, the cooperation of ADB has been informed.
It is to be noted that the government has passed the ‘Universal Pension Management Act, 2023’ with the aim of providing the people of the country with a sustainable and well-organized social security framework to protect their old age life and livelihood. Following the establishment of the National Pension Authority (NPA) under the Act on 2 April 2023, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Universal Pension Scheme on 17 August the same year. Initially 4 schemes of universal pension namely ‘Progress’, ‘Samata’, ‘Prabas’, ‘Suraksha’ and later ‘Prayatya’ scheme were introduced.