The cabinet yesterday cleared the drafts of six laws that seek to hike the remunerations and privileges of the president, prime minister, Speaker, chief justice, ministers, deputy speaker, Supreme Court judges, state ministers, deputy ministers and parliament members.

Under the proposed laws, their salaries will nearly double. The salary hikes will be effective from July 1, 2015 and the allowances from July 1, 2016.

The decision came a month after the cabinet approved the Eighth National Pay Scale to increase the salaries of government employees.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the drafts of the six acts would be sent to the president for approval since they were financial acts. Later, the draft laws will be placed in parliament.

According to the proposed laws, the monthly remuneration of the president would be Tk 1.2 lakh against the current Tk 61,200, while the prime minister would get Tk 1.15 lakh against Tk 58,600, said the cabinet secretary.

The insurance coverage for the president's air trips would be hiked to Tk 27 lakh from the existing Tk 15 lakh, while his discretionary fund would remain unchanged at Tk 2 crore. The PM would have an insurance coverage of Tk 25 lakh for air trips and a discretionary fund of Tk 1.5 crore against the current figures of Tk 14 lakh and Tk 1 crore.

One of the draft laws seeks to increase the Speaker's salary to Tk 1.12 lakh from the existing Tk 57,200 and the coverage of air travel insurance to Tk 16 lakh from Tk 10 lakh.  

The remuneration of the chief justice would be Tk 1.10 lakh, up from the existing Tk 56,000.

The salaries of ministers, deputy speaker, opposition leader, chief whip and Appellate Division judges would be hiked to Tk 1.05 lakh from Tk 53,100.

The insurance coverage for the air trips of the chief justice, ministers, deputy speaker, opposition leader, chief whip and Appellate Division judges, High Court Division judges, state ministers, deputy leader of the opposition and whip of the parliament, deputy ministers and MPs would go up to Tk 8 lakh from Tk 5 lakh.

Besides, the expenditure allowances, house allowances (in case of private houses), daily allowances, discretionary funds and other allowances of the holders of the posts concerned will also be increased.

The six proposed acts are: The President's (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Act-2015, The Prime Minister's (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Act-2015, The Ministers, Ministers of State and Deputy Ministers' (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Act-2015, The Speaker and Deputy Speaker's (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Act-2015, The Members of Parliament (Remuneration and Allowances) (Amendment) Act-2015 and The Supreme Court Judges' (Remuneration and Privileges) (Amendment) Act-2015.

Musharraf said the remunerations and privileges of the holders of constitutional posts were revised after revision of salaries and allowances of public servants.

The gazette on the Eighth National Pay Scale is likely to be published by the first week of next month, he added.

The cabinet also approved a proposal for sending the Money Laundering Prevention (Amendment) Ordinance-2015 to the Parliament Secretariat at the earliest for enacting the law.