7th Pay Commission recommendation: A big challenge facing government
New Delhi: Seventh Pay Commission recommendation is a big challenge facing the central government to accept its.
All central government employees, officers, Unions and association
protested against the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations and they
demanded a re-look at the Seventh Pay Commission report.
The Confederation of Civil Service Associations (COSCA), representing
thousands of officers of 20 civil services, including Indian Police
Service (IPS), met finance minister Arun Jaitley early this month.
The purpose of that meeting was to press their demand that the group
of secretaries of revision pay panel report headed by cabinet secretary,
which will examine the report before the Cabinet nod, must not be
dominated by one service, read IAS.
What they want is the removal of the edge that the IAS enjoys so far,
something that was fiercely opposed by one member in the Pay
Commission, thereby making it difficult for the government to draw a
conclusion.
“The government can’t make the pill more bitter than it is. We expect
the government instead to sweeten the Commission’s recommendations
further,” says IRS officer Jayant Misra, who is also the convenor of
COSCA.
“We have also appealed to the finance minister and cabinet secretary
that the the group of secretaries of revision pay panel report must not
have more than 25 per cent members from one particular service so that
the report can be examined objectively and impartially.”
The Central Secretariat Service which is considered the backbone of
the Central government ministries and the one that comprises over 12,000
employees, is planning a massive agitation in the coming week near
North Block. They will protest against what they call an unfair
treatment meted out by the Pay Commission because “some officers with
vested interests” misled the Commission.
The Trade unions also protested the Seventh Pay Commission
recommendations and said the proposed hike was lowest in many decades
and were not in sync with inflation.
If the government decides to accept the Pay Commission recommendation
as it is. The government will take a hit of Rs 39,100 crore on account
of salary hikes and another Rs 29,300 crore from allowances. Of the
allowances, a whopping Rs 17,200 crore will be on account of only one
allowance — house rent.
If the government delays implementing the Pay Commission report, it can save some allowances amount.
While the pay hike per se will be retrospective, with government
servants getting arrears with effect from January 1, 2016 if the
government accepts it as the effective date, the payment on account of
allowances is prospective in nature.
Money is, however, not the only challenge that the government has to cope with at this juncture.
The bigger challenge is how to arrest the growing discontent among
various layers of civil servants who are at loggerheads with each other.
Whereas IPS, IRS, IIS among others want parity with IAS in terms of
rank and pay, the next layer, the Central Secretariat Service, has its
angst against their immediate superiors in the civil services hierarchy.
“We are not in a tussle with the IAS. But many Group “A” services
officers don’t want us to move up the ladder. We have taken the
agitation path, as the Pay Commission did not even hear us out because
of some officials with vested interests,” says Rakesh Kumar, general
secretary of the Central Secretariat Service Forum.
However, the Finance Ministry has set up a cell in the Expenditure
Department headed by joint secretary R K Chaturvedi for a period of one
year with effect from November 20, 2015 to implement the recommendations
of the Seventh Pay Commission.
The cell will give all the inputs to the group of secretaries of
revision pay panel report headed by cabinet secretary for examining the
report before cabinet nod.
Inputs With ET
