The government has reconstituted the cabinet committee to look into allegations of "discrepancies" in the 8th National Pay Scale. Finance Minister AMA Muhith will head the team.

A circular issued by the cabinet division yesterday said the seven-member body will submit its recommendations upon examining the complaints.

The committee will look into the demands made by public university teachers who have been demonstrating under the banner of Federation of Bangladesh University Teachers' Associations (FBUTA) alleging that the pay scale was "discriminatory".

The previous cabinet committee, constituted on 24th April in 2014, was headed by Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Bhuiyan.

Responding to the reconstituted committee, The FBUTA leaders said they are still firm on their decision of not discussing their demands with the finance minister.

"We have full faith in other members [of the committee], but we don't want to sit with the finance minister," FBUTA General Secretary Prof Maksud Kamal told The Daily Star yesterday.

"He [Muhith] stood against the teachers through his recent comments on our movement. He also tried to give incorrect information about the teachers," he said.

As per the circular issued by the cabinet division, members of the new cabinet committee are ministers of industries, commerce, education, public administration and law, and state ministers for finance and planning.

Prof Maksud said that as part of their ongoing agitation programme, teachers of all 37 public universities will observe a daylong work stoppage today to press their four-point demands including immediate revision of the 8th national pay scale and a separate salary structure for them.

Although many universities have already been closed for the Eid-ul-Azha holiday, academic activities like academic council meeting will be held. Teachers, however, will not take part in these activities, he said.

FBUTA will also hold a rally at the Oporajeyo Bangla of Dhaka University today from 11:00am to 1:00pm, Maksud added.

ALLEGATIONS OF DISCREPANCIES

The post of selection grade professors (senior teachers) has been abolished in the new pay scale although bureaucrats have got a special grade for themselves.

In the seventh pay scale, selection grade professors were under grade-I category along with secretaries, and senior professors were under grade-II and professors under grade-III.

The eighth pay scale did not separately mention anything about selection-grade professors who were put on the same grade as senior professors and secretaries.

These are some of the complaints public university teachers made.

They demand reinstatement of the selection grade. They also want salaries of selection-grade professors to be equivalent to those of senior secretaries.

The government on September 7 approved the new pay scale for all government employees with retrospective effect from July 2015.