Travel allowances for govt employees increased 

The finance ministry has increased the travel allowances for government employees to Tk18 per km from Tk3.75 per km by road, according to a Finance Division circular on Sunday.  

Besides, officials of grade-5 and above will get a travel allowance of Tk30 per kilometre for domestic air routes. For air travel, they used to get 20% of the airfare.

The Finance Division has also re-fixed daily allowance and transfer allowance of government employees.

According to the circular, officials from 5th grade to above will be in category-1, from 6th to 10th grade in category-2, from 11th to 16th grade in category-3 and from 17th to 20th grade in category-4.

The category-1 officials will get Tk18 per kilometre for travel by road, rail and waterways, category-2 employees will get Tk15 per km and category-3 and 4 employees will get Tk8 per km.

For air travel, category-1 officials will get an allowance of Tk30 per kilometre, category-2 employees Tk12 per kilometre and category-3 and 4 employees Tk6 per kilometre.

Explaining the travel allowance, the government notification says that if an employee travels to Saidpur from Dhaka, and then to Rangpur by road, he or she will get an airfare estimating the distance from Dhaka to Rangpur.  

For travel by road, category-1 officials had been getting allowance at the rate of Tk3.75 per kilometre, category-2 officials Tk3.00 per kilometre, category-3 employees Tk2.25 per kilometre and category-4 employees Tk1.50 per kilometre.

Besides, category-1 officials for rail travel would get travel allowance 1.5 times the air-conditioned class fare and other categories would get 1.8 times the fare. For waterways, the allowance was the same as water transport fares.

The Finance Ministry has also increased the travel allowance for the families of government employees on transfer.

Till now, the category-1 officials used to get a travel allowance of Tk2,300 per kg of goods in case of travelling with the family, which has now been increased to Tk3,000.

From now on, they will get an allowance of Tk50 per kilometre. There was no allowance per kilometre in this category, but officials used to get Tk2,250 as goods packing charges.

Category-2 officials used to get Tk1,200 per kg of goods for family travel and Tk1,500 as packing charge. They will get an allowance of Tk45 per kilometre along with the fixed expense of Tk2,500.

Category-3 employees used to get Tk700 per kg allowance and Tk750 packing charge during travelling with the family. Now they will get an allowance of Tk20 per kilometre along with a fixed Tk2,000.

Category-4 employees used to get fixed packing charges of Tk300 and Tk400 per kg. They will now get an allowance of Tk8 per kilometre along with the fixed travel expense of Tk600.