Rs. 40 b salary boost for public servants, pensioners, Tri-Services and others

The salary increment and other allowances for public servants proposed by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera in his Budget 2019 came into effect yesterday.

Accordingly, all public servants will receive an additional monthly allowance of Rs. 2,500, allowance for security forces will be increased, anomalies of 500,000 pensioners will be removed, allowance for the disabled will be increased, and the number of recipients of the kidney patients’ allowance will be increased. The Government has allocated a total sum of Rs. 40 billion for this purpose.

Under the public servants’ salary increment, 1.1 million public servants are entitled to receive an Interim allowance of Rs. 2,500, effective today. The Government is to spend Rs. 20 billion for these allowance boosts. 

Although the payment of this interim allowance is implemented, the cost of living allowance of Rs. 7, 800 currently being paid to the public servants will be continued as it was. 

Meanwhile, allowance increments for Tri-Forces officers and members of other ranks were also implemented yesterday.

The Government’s measures to increase the monthly quota for the Tri-Forces officers and members of other ranks have been in effect since January. Accordingly, approval was given recently to increase the monthly ration quota for the officers to Rs. 23,231, and for the members of other ranks, to Rs. 19,350. 

In addition, the house rent payments for the Tri-Forces members will be doubled, effective today. Simultaneously, the commando allowance for the members in parallel ranks of Sri Lanka Army, Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Air Force will be increased up to Rs. 5,000 from Rs. 1,000. The Government has allocated Rs. 1.175 billion for this purpose. Certain allowances which were increased for the members of the Tri-Forces yesterday had been stagnated at the same point for the last 20 years.

In addition, the Budget proposal to remove the pensioners’ salary anomaly will be effective from today. Accordingly, the pension of over 500,000 public servants who retired before 31 December 2015 will be increased by a minimum sum of Rs. 2,800 and a maximum amount of Rs. 20,000. At the same time, the cost of living allowance of Rs. 3,250 being paid to the pensioners will be paid continuously. The Government has allocated Rs. 12 billion to settle this salary anomaly of pensioners.

In addition, the proposal to increase the monthly allowance for the disabled to Rs. 5,000 from Rs. 3,000 will also be implemented today. Accordingly, in addition to the 32,000 disabled persons who are already entitled to receive this allowance, together with another 40,000 on the waiting list, a total number of 72,000 disabled persons will be paid this monthly allowance Rs. 5000 each. The Government has allocated Rs. 4,350 million for this purpose. 

The Government has already been paying a monthly allowance of Rs. 5,000 each to 21,000 chronically ill kidney patients. A large number of similar patients are on the waiting list to receive this monthly allowance. Therefore, another 5,000 patients will receive this allowance. The Government has allocated Rs. 1,840 for this purpose.

Accordingly, the Government will spend Rs. 39,365 million to pay all these salaries and allowances. Payment of these salaries and allowances were implemented yesterday.