No entertainment allowance for online training
The government has suspended entertainment allowance and halved the honorarium for trainees and organisers of online in-house training amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Finance Division of the Ministry of Finance has issued a circular in this regard recently.
As per the circular, there will be no entertainment allowance for any online in-house training organised by the ministries, departments or their subordinate offices.
Besides, the course directors, coordinators and support staff and trainees will get half of their prescribed training allowance.
However, the trainers will be given their full honorarium at the prescribed rate.
According to an official of the finance ministry, the government has taken the decision to stop the misuse of money in this sector as most of the training was being held virtually.
Usually, training allowances vary based on the type of training, he said.
Meanwhile, due to a lack of training during the pandemic, the government has Tk 1,633 crore unspent from the allocation in one year.
Due to the low number of training during the Covid-19, the expenditure on training in 2019-20 financial year was about 12 per cent less than that the previous year.
The government spent Tk 2,326 crore for training in financial year 2019-2020 which was Tk 2,656 crore in FY 2018-19, according to the finance ministry.
The allocation for training was Tk 4,059 crore in fiscal 2019-20.
In the last financial year, the initial allocation in this sector was Tk 3,947 crore which was later revised to Tk 2,833 crore as the training cost has been reduced.
The ministry official said most of the allocated money would remain unused as most of the training was being held online.
He said in FY 2019-20, the in-house training cost was Tk 52 crore and there was no allocation in this sector in FY 2020-21 as in-house training was suspended last year.
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