Jammu: An employees union Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention for early release of the Seventh Pay Commission award.
The National Mazdoor Conference (NMC) President Subash Shastri sought the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention for early release of Seventh Pay Commission award for central government employees and requested him to ask the Empowered Committee of Secretaries (COS) to early finalize the review of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for cabinet nod.
Shastri has expressed concern over the slow processing of Seventh Pay Commission recommendations implementation.
Shastri also urged Prime Minister Modi to provide sufficient fund to state governments for starting their preparation to implement the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for state government employees.
An Empowered Committee of Secretaries, headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, has been set up on January 27, to process for implementation the report of the Seventh Pay Commission.
The first meeting of the Empowered Committee of Secretaries was held on Tuesday to formulate action points for processing Seventh Pay Commission report but the minutes of the meeting were not released on Tuesday.
An Implementation Cell has also been created in the Finance Ministry which works as the Secretariat of the Committee.
The 900-page report of the Seventh Pay Commission headed by Justice A K Mathur was presented to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on November 19 with a recommendation that the new scales will be implemented from January 1 this year.
The pay commission recommended a 14.27 per cent increase in basic pay, the lowest in 70 years. The previous Sixth Pay Commission had recommended a 20 per cent hike which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008.
The Pay Commission has recommended a total 23.55 per cent increase in salary, allowances and pension, along with a virtual one rank one pension (OROP) for central government employees.
The minimum pay has been recommended to be raised to Rs 18,000 per month from current Rs 7,000 while the maximum pay, drawn by the Cabinet Secretary, has been fixed at Rs 2.5 lakh per month from current Rs 90,000. For the Secretaries it has been fixed at Rs 2.25 lakh as against Rs 80,000 currently.
The Empowered Committee may bring slight changes to the Pay Commission recommendation within the government’s expenditure Rs 1.02 lakh crore in 2016.
In a significant recommendation, the Pay Commission’s report favored introduction of a health insurance insurance scheme for central government employees and pensioners and doubling the gratuity ceiling to Rs 20 lakh.
