New Delhi: Millions of central government employees are currently unhappy with their 7th Pay Commission pay hike.
It seems that nobody is satisfied with their 7th Pay Commission pay
hike. At every level there appears to be an upward pressure on salaries
and allowances, everyone deserve more pay than 7th Pay Commission pay
hike. The 7th Pay Commission pay hike has got recent media attention,
while, at the other end, there has been debate about the hiking of pay
on the recommendations 7th Pay Commission is proper or not.
According to the commission’s recommendations, the minimum pay has
been fixed at Rs.18,000 and the maximum at Rs.2.5 lakh for the cabinet
secretary, the country’s senior-most civil servant. The commission had
recommended a 14.28% increase in basic pay and the cabinet went with
ditto to it.
The previous 6th Pay Commission had recommended a 20 per cent hike which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008.
There has been widespread demand from central government employee
unions to hike the minimum pay to Rs.26,000; but the government has not
accepted the demand till date.
After the central government employees union had threatened to carry
out an indefinite strike, the government had promised hiking minimum pay
but they are not now in mood for hiking the minimum pay.
Inequalities in pay can be damaging. Excessive remuneration of top
bureaucrats has been made to unnecessarily drive up average pay in
middle-lower ranks, and dramatic differences between levels throughout
government business can undermine motivation. In a wider social sense,
perceived inequalities between groups leads to huge discontent and
instability.
Aaccording to the notification
of cabinet approved 18 pay matrices, the rate of increase of cabinet
Secretary’s basic pay is 178 per cent as he got Rs 90,000 (fixed) in the
immediate past under 6th pay commission recommendations, while
middle-lower ranks employees will now only get 157% increase of their
basic pay merging dearness allowances.
The pay ratio between the Indian top most bureaucrat and the lowest
grade employees in the 7th Pay Commission recommendations is 1:13.9,
which was 1:12 in the 6th Pay Commission recommendations.
All pay commissions except 7th Pay Commission made up pay gap between
lower paid employees and top bureaucrats from second Pay Commission
1:41 ratio to Sixth pay commission 1:12.
The first pay commission was recommended pay of the top bureaucrats
41 times higher than the government employees at the bottom. The top
bureaucrats were given salary Rs 2,263 while the lowest earning
employees got Rs 55.
Subsequent pay commissions reduced the ratio of pay between lowest
earning employees and top bureaucrats from 1:41 in 1947 to about 1:12 in
2006, while 7th Pay Commission made it higher about to 1:14.
The cabinet has approved the hike of the basic pay but decided to
defer the recommended 63% allowances hike in the government employees
pay package and refer the matter to a committee headed by Finance
Secretary Ashok Lavasa.
Allowances contribute a lot in the pay hike recommendation. If the
allowance is not taken into consideration it will mean fewer amounts
because the allowance which the commission proposed is very substantial.
The hike in allowances, which will give them more money in the
pocket, the compensatory perks for all central government employees,
which is likely to be paid from October 1 and no arrears for allowances
(except Dearness Allowance) is paid, as per usual practice, the
allowances is paid from the date of implementation. This also a cause of
unhappiness in central government employees.
However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in the Parliament in this
month, “The Pay Commission has put a burden of Rs 1.03 lakh crore.”
source: The Sen times
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