AFD demands car loan facility for military officers

Desk Report: The Armed Forces Division has suggested that the finance ministry should amend the guideline for interest-free car loan facility making military officials ranking major and above entitled to the facility, reports New Age.
Finance ministry officials said that the suggestion was made in a letter to the finance division by Brigadier General Abdul Quayyum Mollah on behalf of the principal staff officer Lieutenant General Md Mahfuzur Rahman on August 29.
The officials quoting the letter said that officers ranking major and above were not entitled to the car loan facility amended in 2017 as it included only the deputy secretaries with the previous officers starting from joint secretaries and above.
These officers have been entitled to a loan of Tk 30 lakh for purchasing a car and monthly maintenance fee of Tk 50,000, which was mainly introduced in 2012 to check misuse of cars of different projects.
Golam Kibria, a leader of the BCS Coordination Committee, an association of 26 cadre service officers, said that there was an apprehension that discrepancy would be widened in inter-cadre service with the inclusion of deputy secretaries for the car loan.
The move benefitted about 1,500 deputy secretaries as officers equivalent to deputy secretary of other cadres like health, agriculture, police, customs, income tax, audit, education were not entitled to the car loan facility.
BCS Coordination Committee has already placed demands, including car loan facility for all equivalent officers to end discrepancy in the inter-cadre service.
Another BCS Coordination Committee leader said that officers of cadre service, especially those of admin, enjoyed privilege in promotion to higher government position for long creating resentment among the government’s other ‘deprived’ officers.
The privileges to the admin cadre also contradict the Services (Reorganisation and Conditions) Act, 1975 aimed at ensuring uniformity in the cadre service.