The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Sixth Pay Commission has submitted its pay hike report to the Cabinet. The report has recommended a substantial hike for all civil servants.
The pay commission members are tight lipped about the report and the hike percentage proposed but what is known is that the hike will definitely be more than the 5 percent basic pay hike given back in November 2022 as part of the Pay Structure Reform Bill.
The hike had been coupled with a one – off fixed payment P1 position level and below at Nu 1,000 for P1-P4, Nu 1,500 for P5- S4 and Nu 2,000 for S-5 and below to mitigate hardship.
The hike will not only be bigger than this last hike but the pay commission has recommended the same percentage hike across all categories of civil servants. In the past the tendency of this and other governments have been to give lower percentage hikes at senior levels and higher one for lower levels.
However, given what the executives have been through in terms of strict performance assessments, heavier workload and also many people from the P category leaving the civil service the recommendation is to give a similar percentage hike all across.
A hike being recommended is based on additional resources being made available for the hike.
To make the hike sustainable in the longer run an important calculation is that the 1020 MW Punatsangchu II project is expected to start commissioning from October 2024 onwards with complete commissioning by January 2025.
This project would then help support the hike in the longer term.
The two purposes of the hike are to firstly help stem the flow of large numbers of civil servants resigning to work in Australia and to also deal with inflation.
