Basic salary to be raised to Rs.10, 000

By Ashwin Hemmathagama – Our Lobby Correspondent

Providing a boost for private sector workers, fresh legislation will soon be finalised to increase the basic salary to Rs.10, 000 and raise private sector salaries by Rs.2,500, Minister of Labour and Trade Unions Relations W. D. J. Senewiratne told Parliament on Thursday.

The proposed bill nearing completion will make it mandatory for employers to follow it, unless they have recently increased employee salaries – especially companies that increased salaries before August 2015.

“We have drafted this bill making it compulsory to increase the salary by Rs.2,500/-. We discussed the matter at the National Labour Advisory Council and started drafting the bill, which is now with the Legal Draftsman for finalising,” said the Minister.

 According to the proposed bill, private sector employees will receive Rs.1,500/- backdated from January 2015 and an additional Rs.1,000/- will be added to it immediately after the bill gets the Parliamentary approval boosting the total to Rs.2,500/-. Adding more to the list of benefits offered to the private sector, the minimum basic salary of the private sector employee has also been increased to Rs.10,000/-, which will soon be presented to the Cabinet for approval.

 “There are around 61 Acts dealing with the labour affairs and some of them are 50 – 60 years old. Some are redundant and have compliance issues as well. So, we have decided to amend most and repeal the others creating a favourable working environment for both employer as well as employee,” he added.