Cong welcomes constitution of Seventh Pay Commission

Welcoming the constitution of the Seventh Pay Commission, Congress today recalled that the BJP-led NDA government had "rejected" the legitimate formation of the Sixth Pay Commission in 2003.

Party general secretary in-charge for Communication Ajay Maken's tweets hailing the pay commission came soon after the the government announced constitution of the Commission, which will go into the salaries, allowances and pensions of about 80 lakh of its employees and pensioners.

"7th Pay Commission of Govt employees announced. Except for 6th Pay Commission all Pay commissions are set up in 3rd year of a decade. The government should attract best of talents as its employees. Pay Commissions help in attracting and also retaining best available talents," Maken commented on the microblogging site Twitter.

He recalled that the NDA government had rejected the Sixth Pay Commission in 2003.

"NDA rejected the legitimate formation of 6th Pay Commission in 2003. Congress setup 6th Pay Commission in 2005, now again the 7th CPC in 2013," Maken said.

Announcing the decision earlier, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said in a statement "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh approved the constitution of the 7th Pay Commission. Its recommendations are likely to be implemented with effect from January 1, 2016."

The setting up of the Commission, whose recommendations will benefit about 50 lakh central government employees, including those in defence and railways, and about 30 lakh pensioners, comes ahead of the Assembly elections in five states in November and the general elections next year.

The government constitutes Pay Commission almost every ten years to revise the pay scales of its employees and often these are adopted by states after some modification.

The sixth Pay Commission was implemented from January 1, 2006, fifth from January 1, 1996 and fourth from January 1, 1986.