The government has set a target to bring all public servants under the Universal Pension Scheme introduced in 2023, Finance Secretary Khairuzzaman Majumder said on Wednesday.

“Ultimately our goal is to bring the government employees under the Universal Pension Scheme,” he said while responding to questions at the inaugural ceremony of the UPension App at the Finance Ministry where Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed was the chief guest.

The Finance Secretary said although initially it was stated that the public servants of the country will be brought under the UpS by July 2025 it was suspended.

“Now it will be done slowly and the target has not been scrapped yet, it has been suspended,” he said.

He mentioned the pension system in India where everyone is under one universal pension scheme.“We will do that gradually,” he added.

The Finance Secretary said there was a criticism that there is nothing like that for the non-government job holders which exists in the developed countries across the globe.

“After studying several years from the Finance Division we have introduced the system to provide protection for the private job holders, this is a very good package,” he said.

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He also mentioned that since the inception of the system in 2023, some 375,000 persons have been enlisted in this UPS.

National Board of Revenue (NBR) chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan said that public university teachers opposed to be enlisted in this UPS at that time as they had found that they would be getting less benefits from the existing system.

“We have to address those problems, there might be little bit slide down in benefits, but must not be highly different from the existing pension system,” he said.

Executive chairman of the National Pension Authority Md Mohiuddin Khan also spoke at the programme.

The UPS is a government-led, contributory pension programme designed to provide a structured retirement safety net for all citizens aged 18 and above.