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Now perks shoot up for PM, ministers, speaker, dy speaker

Staff Correspondent
The Jatiya Sangsad last night passed three bills enhancing house rent and other allowances of the prime minister, ministers, state ministers, deputy ministers and allowances of the speaker and the deputy speaker.
The rise in perks to the speaker,
deputy speaker, the prime minister and members of the council of ministers came just a day after passage of another bill providing for staggering increase of perks to the lawmakers.
The main opposition Awami League, which protested these bills
when tabled in parliament on June 16, was not in the House yesterday as the party has been boycotting its sittings since June 26.
The passage of The Prime Minister's (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Bill, 2003, means the prime minister will now get Tk 50,000 a month in house rent, a Tk 15,000 rise on the previous amount (Tk 35,000). The amount will stand at Tk 6 lakh a year from now on, instead of Tk 4.20 lakh previously.
The bill enhances fourfold the prime minister's daily allowance -- Tk 1,000 from now on instead of Tk 250 before. The prime minister will be entitled to this allowance while on tour.
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With the passage of The Speaker and Deputy Speaker (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Bill, 2003, both the speaker and deputy speaker will get sumptuary allowance of Tk 6,000 a month from now on. Previously, the speaker used to get Tk 5,000 and the deputy speaker Tk 3,000.
The speaker will also get an enhanced discretionary grant of Tk 3 lakh now from Tk 2 lakh. The speaker's daily allowance also got a significant rise from Tk 250 to Tk 750.
With the passage of the Ministers, Ministers of State and Deputy Ministers (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Bill, 2003, ministers will get a monthly house rent of Tk 25,000, up by Tk 7,500 from the previous amount of Tk 17,500.
State and deputy ministers will get Tk 20,000 a month each in house rent now. Earlier, they used to get Tk 15,000 each a month.
The ministers will get daily allowance of Tk 750 each now instead of Tk 225 while the state and deputy ministers will get Tk 600 instead of Tk 200.
The bill also enables the ministers to draw an annual discretionary grant of Tk 3 lakh each, a 50 per cent rise from Tk 2 lakh that they used to get earlier.
Similarly, the state ministers and deputy ministers will now get enhanced discretionary grants of
Tk 2 lakh and Tk 1.5 lakh respectively. Earlier they used to get Tk 1 lakh each.
Moreover, in addition to an official car, maintained at government expense, each of the ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers will also get a Jeep for essential official business, particularly while on official tour outside Dhaka.
In case the attached departments, directorates or corporations of the ministries and divisions concerned cannot provide the additional transport to them, the finance ministry will allocate necessary funds for procurement of the transports.
The amounts of sumptuary allowances for the ministers, state ministers and deputy ministers have now been raised to Tk 6000, Tk 4000 and Tk 3000 from Tk 3000, Tk 2000, and Tk 1500.
Earlier, Local Government and Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, who is also in charge of Cabinet Division in parliament, proposed passage of the bills on perks rise to the prime minister and the ministers.
Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moudud Ahmed proposed passage of the bill seeking perks rise to the speaker and the deputy speaker.
Editorial on page 4