Bangla Press Desk: A total of 86,709 religious institutions will be brought under the government’s state honorarium scheme in the 2026-27 financial year, benefiting 256,074 religious leaders and workers.
The institutions include 82,656 mosques, 3,000 temples, 752 Buddhist monasteries and 301 churches.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman is expected to inaugurate the programme later this month.
The decision was taken at a recent meeting of a cell formed to introduce monthly honoraria and training-based welfare schemes for mosque imams, muezzins, khadims and people working at other places of worship as part of the government’s election manifesto implementation.
The information was disclosed in a revised press release issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs on Monday (10 August), signed by its Public Relations Officer Md Abubakar Siddique.
The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister’s Adviser for Public Administration, with ministerial rank, and cell chairman Md Ismail Jabiullah. State Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Mir Shahe Alam, parliamentary whip and Shariatpur-3 MP Mia Nuruddin Ahmed Apu, Gaibandha-4 MP Mohammad Shamim Kaiser, Religious Affairs Secretary Munshi Alauddin Al Azad and Social Welfare Secretary Dr Mohammad Abu Yusuf, among other cell members, attended the meeting.
Under the scheme for the 2026-27 financial year, 15 mosques will be selected from each union to receive the honorarium. In municipalities, four mosques will be selected from each ward of ‘A’ category municipalities, three from each ward of ‘B’ category municipalities and two from each ward of ‘C’ category municipalities.
Six mosques will be selected from each ward of city corporations.
Five temples will be selected from each upazila during the current financial year. Of these, two will be selected from each ‘A’ category municipality and one from each municipality in the other categories. The remaining temples will be selected at union level.
The number of Buddhist monasteries and churches will be determined at a rate of 25% on a district-wise basis.
Under the programme, each selected mosque imam, temple priest, Buddhist monastery abbot and church priest receives a monthly honorarium of Tk5,000. Muezzins, temple sevaits, Buddhist monastery deputy abbots and assistant church priests receive Tk3,000 a month, while mosque khadims receive Tk2,000.
The honorarium is transferred directly to beneficiaries’ bank accounts through electronic funds transfer (EFT).
The government has allocated Tk1,100 crore in the current financial year’s budget for providing monthly honoraria to religious leaders working at mosques and other places of worship.Around one-quarter of the country’s religious institutions will be brought under the state benefit scheme this financial year. The government plans to gradually bring all religious institutions in the country under the scheme over the next three financial years.
As part of the implementation of the government’s election manifesto, honoraria were provided for the first time in the 2025-26 financial year under a pilot project to 13,949 people, including imams, muezzins, khadims, priests and sevaits, working at 6,017 selected religious institutions across the country.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman inaugurated the programme at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium on 14 March this year, less than a month after forming the government.
