Kathmandu, March 8 

Less than a year after scrapping ‘motivation allowance’ offered to civil servants as part of austerity measures, the government has launched a new scheme named ‘additional allowance’ for those working extra hours in 18 government agencies.

The government had in May last year scrapped perks and incentives offered to civil servants except for the dearness and local allowances for those posted in remote areas, endorsing the ‘Guideline on Bringing Austerity and Effectiveness in Public Expenditure’.

But a meeting of the Cabinet last month decided to ‘reintroduce’ the provision with a different name—‘additional allowance’—for employees working in 18 government agencies, including Financial Comptroller General Office, Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers, Office of the Attorney General, courts, Parliament, National Vigilance Centre, Department of Civil Personnel Records, Offices of the President and Vice-President, and District Treasury Controller Offices.

As per the new provision, civil servants in these 18 agencies working for more than 20 hours a week on top of their regular 40 office hours a week will be provided with additional 50 per cent of their basic pay on a proportionate basis for the extra work hours, according to OPMCM Secretary Shishir Dhungana. He said the government introduced the scheme considering the fact that civil servants in those agencies had to work for extra hours by nature of their work.

However, civil servants, who had been lobbying for the reintroduction of the allowance, termed the new scheme ‘old wine in new bottle’ and it did not address their concerns.

Punya Prasad Dhakal of the official Trade Union said the government should have launched the provision for civil servants of all government agencies.

“This is a flawed scheme. This is partiality against those who work for more than their regular office hours but have been posted in agencies other than the 18 designated ones,” he said.

“Instead of this, the government should have offered house rent or transport allowances if it really wanted to motivate civil servants.”