#7thcpc #paycommission New Delhi: The Finance Ministry official involved with the process of pay hike told The Sen Times on condition of anonymity that government is facing the classic dilemma on the subject of announcement of pay hike beyond the 7th pay commission recommendations.
He lamented that the 7th pay commission recommendations has been implemented in August, which was made effective from January 1 for hike in basic pay of 6th pay panel, but Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s assurance that hiking salaries beyond the 7th pay panel proposal, now failed to convince the central government employees unions’ leaders who continued to grieve over not acceptation of their demands.
The unions had claimed that the approved pay hike was the lowest in the last 70 years and the Pay Commission award was not discussed with them, hence they had threatened to go on an indefinite strike over proper pay hike on July 11, 2016.
The unions had called off their indefinite strike following the pay hike promise of the Finance Minister Jaitley on June 30, 2016.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had reiterated his promise in Rajya Sabha on July 19, 2016, “The minimum pay Rs 18,000 was made on recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. But government will consider hiking it after discussions with all stakeholders, once the proposal in this regard will be submitted to government.”
On the other hand, Jaitley is facing a dilemma over fraud on a public sector banks, Reserve Bank of India’s data from April 2013 to June 2016 shows that a total of Rs 2,450 crore was lost to 1,232 bank frauds of Rs 1 lakh and more where bank employees were involved.
PM Modi had promised to create one crore new jobs every year, but three years after the BJP came to power in a stunning victory, job creation is at an eight-year low. So, government needs to create jobs rather than the pay hike.
On the contrary, the official said, the government is mulling to increase the pay of employees, who get salaries from pay matrix level 1 to 5, from April, ignoring the DoPT letter on October 30 to protect Jaitley’s promise in Parliament.
Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) issued a letter on October 30 stating that the demand for increase in minimum Pay and fitment formula do not appear to be treated as anomaly, therefore, these do not come under the purview of NAC.
According to Jaitley’s promise, the government formed National Anomaly Committee (NAC) in September, 2016 to resolve pay anomalies arising out of the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission’s recommendations.
Earlier, The 7th pay panel recommended minimum pay Rs 18,000 per month while the maximum pay from Rs 2.5 lakh, with a fitment factor of 2.57 times of basic pay of 6th pay commission uniformly for replacing the 6th pay commission pay scales, which was got cabinet nod on June 29, 2016.
