The 2027 Budget allocates Rs 110 billion to implement the final phase of the public sector salary revision introduced in 2025, and raises allowances across eight categories of state employee, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Parliament on Thursday.
The allowance increases, as reported by the Daily Mirror, are:
| Who | Allowance | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctors | DAT allowance | Rs 70,000 | Rs 95,000 |
| Nurses, paramedical staff | Special duty allowance (monthly) | Rs 6,000 | Rs 12,000 |
| Other health staff | Special duty allowance (monthly) | Rs 2,000 | Rs 4,000 |
| University academics | Academic allowance (monthly) | — | +Rs 25,000 |
| Police officers | Food and accommodation (monthly) | — | +Rs 10,000 |
| Prison officers | Risk allowance | Rs 8,000 | Rs 16,000 |
| Grama Niladharis | Travelling allowance | Rs 1,600 | Rs 4,000 |
| Executive officers | Transport allowance (where eligible) | Rs 50,000 | Rs 100,000 |
Daily food allowances for the armed forces are also to be increased, though the filing does not give the amounts.
The Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 line for other health staff appears only in Hiru News’s filing, which also states that the doctors’ DAT rise is an increase of Rs 25,000 — consistent with the Daily Mirror’s Rs 70,000-to-Rs 95,000 figures.
Pensioners
Pensioners who retired between 2020 and 2024 are to receive an additional interim allowance of Rs 2,500 a month. The cohort is defined by retirement date, so it does not cover those who left the service before 2020.
When the money arrives
Most of the increases take effect in April or July 2027. Some are staged across two years, and Hiru News is specific about which: the health sector allowance increases are to be paid 50 per cent from July 2027 and the remaining 50 per cent in 2028. The Daily Mirror records the two-phase structure without naming the services it applies to.
110,000 more recruits
Separately, the budget sets aside provision to recruit a further 110,000 people into the public service in stages, Hiru News reported.
The President said a Cabinet-appointed officials’ committee and the Department of Management Services have already approved recruitment against 148,940 vacancies, of which roughly 40,000 have been filled. The remaining balance — about 108,940, which the filing rounds to 110,000 — is what the new provision covers.
Context
The salary revision being completed here was announced in the 2025 Budget as a three-stage exercise, with stages falling in 2025, 2026 and 2027. The Rs 110 billion is the cost of the last of those stages, not a new award on top of it. The allowance increases above are separate from the salary revision.
Sourcing note
Two verified newsrooms have filed: the Daily Mirror carries the fullest list of services and the pensioner measure, Hiru News adds the other-health-staff line and pins down the 50/50 phasing for the health sector. Figures common to both agree.
Readers should be aware that searches on this topic return a large volume of Budget 2025 material with superficially similar figures — basic salary revisions for grade one and grade two medical officers, and a Rs 3,000 pension anomaly payment for those who retired before 1 January 2020. Those are different measures for a different cohort from a different budget, and none of them appear above.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the total headcount affected, states the cost of the allowance increases separately from the Rs 110 billion salary provision, or says whether the armed forces food allowance rise is included in that figure. Nor is there any indication of what the 110,000 recruitments will cost in a full year, or which services they are for.
