Pay Revision For Govt Staff On Hold

The government yesterday decided to withhold implementation of the Fifth Pay Commissions recommendations for its 52 lakh employees involving a package of Rs 13,500 crore. The government move follows a strike threat by several employees associations.

Cabinet secretary TSR Subramaniam said, We have withheld implementation of the commissions report because we find the government has done well. We have gone way beyond the recommendations which we feel are quite generous. And after paying Rs 13,500 crore, we find everybody is dissatisfied..., he said.

Official sources said the government was having a rethink in view of threatened agitation by employees against the pay package.

 

The sources said the threatened stir and protests had dismayed the government which, they maintained, went out of the way to satisfy requirements of low-paid employees.

They said any decision of the Centre would have repercussions on state governments with state employees likely to demand similar pay hikes. Already, many state governments were paying 90 to 95 per cent of their revenues on salaries for their employees.

Reacting to governments decision, CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta asked: Why they (government) have taken so much time to take a decision to put it on hold?. They knew from the beginning that they (employees) were all opposed to it. Why should they spent so much time sleeping over the issue?Suresh Tendulkar, a member of the pay commission, said, it is more a reflection on indecisiveness on part of the Centre rather than anything to do with merits of the pay commissions report.

The Union cabinet had accepted the report last month, saying that a official notification would follow soon. The pay commission recommendations were first vetted by an empowered committee of secretaries whose report was examined by a group of ministers headed by Prime Minister I K Gujral before it was finally approved.

The four categories of employees who will gain more than what was recommended are armed services personnel, scientific personnel, police services and lower category of civilian employees.