Despite being the main driving force of field administration, no promotion ladder has been created for administrative officers working in the offices of Divisional Commissioners, District Commissioners, and Upazila Nirbahi Officers in the last 55 years.
As a result, they have to retire empty-handed after entering the service in the 10th grade and spending 20 to 25 years of their lives in the same position without promotion.
Currently, there are about 830 administrative officers working in the offices of 8 divisional commissioners, 64 district administrators and all upazila executive officers in the country. They play a leading role in running the government at the field level, supervising development work, maintaining law and order, disaster management, conducting elections and ensuring complex daily administrative services. But even though the workload of official work has increased, the stagnation of their professional life has not ended.
There is a law, there is no opportunity
Section 18 of the ‘Government Jobs Act, 2018’ makes it mandatory for all government employees to formulate a proper career planning or career plan. Although there are continuous opportunities for promotion in organizations like health, education, police, food or agriculture departments, the only exception is field administration.
According to the ‘Bangladesh Secretariat Recruitment Rules, 2014’, even an office assistant of grade 20 in the secretariat gets a legal opportunity to be promoted to Deputy Secretary (non-cadre) on the strength of merit and skill. However, no officer gets a single promotion in his life even after joining the field administration with the same qualifications. Officials say this is clearly against the principle of equality of the constitution and is extremely discriminatory.
”There is intense frustration among the officers due to being stuck in the same position for a long time. While there is an excellent path for promotion in other departments, it is completely closed in the field administration. If a fair hierarchy is created, the employees will get inspiration to work in new endeavors.”
— SM Jahidul Islam, President, Bangladesh Field Administration Administrative Officers Welfare Association
The decision of the workshop was also blocked and the file was blocked.
The Ministry of Public Administration organized a special workshop in June 2024 to resolve this deprivation. There, it was unanimously recommended to create the posts of administrative officers starting from the 16th grade to the 10th grade and ‘Section Officer’ in the 9th grade and ‘Senior Section Officer’ in the 7th/8th grade.
Later, the decision to implement this recommendation was reiterated in the ‘District Administrator Conference 2025’. But field-level officers complained that even after a long time, the real reflection of these recommendations and decisions has not yet been visible.
An urgent appeal to the Prime Minister
To put an end to this discrimination forever, a memorandum has been submitted to the Honorable Prime Minister today, Thursday (August 20, 2026) through 8 divisional commissioners and 64 district administrators from across the country.
Officials hope that the country’s head of government will quickly approve new posts for grades 9 and 7/8 to make field administration more dynamic, transparent, and people-friendly and to restore the morale of officials.