Central Government Employees Annoyed

Central government employees annoyed with Modi government about 7th Pay Commission pay hike

New Delhi: With widespread resentment against the "meagre" pay hike implemented in the 7th Pay Commission and not get the the higher allowances, central government employees are annoyed with PM Modi government.

They are annoyed at little pay hike without allowances.

The Prime Minister Narendra modi government has fixed the minimum pay at a meagre Rs 18,000 in the 7th Pay Commission. In the last Pay Commission, the basic pay was Rs 7,000. The government multiplied it by 2.57 (fitment formula) and came to Rs 18,000. The employees unions are demanding 3.68 fitment formula.

The major contention is on the minimum pay, which unions are demanding to be Rs 26,000.

The employees unions had a meeting with a group of ministers, including the Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on the evening of June 30, 2016. The ministers said it will be considered and would be referred to High Level Committee.

The ministers assured the employees unions of hiking minimum pay but the government now decided not to appoint High Level Committee to examine the 7th Pay Commission recommendations in respect of minimum pay.

"The government will not clear any proposal on hike in minimum Pay including others pay related matter under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations because the cabinet had already passed it. Hence cabinet only will take higher allowances which was not given nod by it", the top Finance Ministry sources told The Sen Times.

The government had set up the committee on allowances headed by Finance Secretary to examine the recommendations of 7th Pay Commission on allowances other than dearness allowance for cabinet nod in July, 2016 as the pay commission had recommended abolition of 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances. The committee on allowances was given four months by the government to complete its task.

The government gave the extension of the term of the committee on allowances up to February 22, 2017 in November.

However, the committee on allowances head Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa said in October, 2016, "We are ready to submit our report, when the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley calls up."

The government gave the extension on the pretext of demonetisation for getting normalized the position of the cash crunch.

Now, the government said that the higher allowances may be announced in March after the completion of five states assemblies poll process as the model code of conduct has come into effect from January 4 and the implementation is to come in April after nine to ten months of getting basic pay hike of the central government employees.

The sources told us that the government had no plan to give allowances in arrears from August.

So, the 7th pay commission recommendations gave an agonizing pain for the central government employees.

TST