Ajay Maken
backs cry for seventh pay panel
New Delhi
: With a little over a year to go before the next general election, the demand
for a Seventh Pay Commission has started to gather momentum. Union housing and
urban poverty alleviation minister Ajay Maken has taken the lead in endorsing
the Central government employees' request for setting up of the new pay panel,
citing the erosion of real wages due to high inflation since implementation of
the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations.
In a
letter addressed to Prime Minister Manmohon Singh, Maken underlined how every
pay panel since the Second Pay Commission, barring the Sixth Pay Commission,
were set up in the third year of the decade. "We are again in the third
year of the ongoing decade and Central government employees are justifiably
looking forward to the Seventh Pay Commission," he said.
Recalling
that it was under Singh that the last pay panel was set up in 2005, after the
NDA government failed to do so in 2003, Maken, in the communication dated March
14, requested that a decision be "taken on priority" for constitution
of the Seventh Pay Commission. A notification for constitution of the 7th
Central Pay Commission is the need of the hour, which is bound to have bearing
upon about 20 million employees," he said.
Maken
concluded by emphasizing that setting up of the new pay panel was in
"larger interest of government employees as well as the (Congress)
party".
Source: The Times of India
