New Delhi, July 20: Although
the revised recommendations of 7th Pay Commission has received a formal nod of
approval from the Union Cabinet, the gazette notification for finalizing the
salary hike is awaited. Without the official notification, the salaries
received by central government employees on August 1 would not be hiked as per
the CPC recommendations. Government has to notify the new pay scale within 7
days in order to implement the 14.29 percent hike in basic pay.
Although the CPC
recommendations were cleared on June 29, the issuance of official notification
was delayed since the government was facing protest from several employee
unions over a range of anomalies related to allowances. Apart from the pay
parity issues, a larger section of the employee union led by National National
Joint Action Committee (NJAC) had demanded the increase in entry-level salary
from Rs 18,000 (as per new recommendations) to Rs 26,000.
The unions had earlier
threatened to launch a nationwide strike from July 11. Nearly 33 lakh central
government employees belonging to Post, Railways and Defence were expected to
participate in the protest. However, following the setup of a High Level
Committee by the government to look into their demands, they deferred their
strike by at least four months.
7th Pay Commission is
considered to be, by far, the lowest ever salary hike implemented in the past
70 years. Including allowances, the hike is only 23.5 percent.
The implementation of CPC
recommendations would positively impact a total of 47 lakh government
employees, along with 53 lakh pensioners. It would also add an excessive burden
on the Centre. However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley claims that the hike in
salaries would instead rejuvenate the economy by giving a inserting a
demand-driven bang in the domestic market.
