7th Pay Commission – States Want Implementation to be delayed
7th Pay Commission – States Want Implementation to be delayed – States that have written to cabinet secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha, PMO and NITI aayog, include West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
About a dozen states have sought more time to assess implications on their finances of implementing the 23.5 per cent hike in pay and pension for their employees in sync with the seventh pay panel recommendations for the central government staff.
Several States like West Bengal, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, among others, have written to the Prime Minister, Cabinet Secretary and Finance Ministry to delay implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, as most financially stressed States will be under pressure to make a similar pay increase.
“There are many States that are already financially stressed. There are a few States which are not in a position to increase pay and pension of their employees even during the next financial year. They have sought more time to assess the impact of the recommendations,” a senior Finance Ministry official said. While the Centre’s pay bill will go up by `1,02,100 crore in 2016-17 if the government accepts the report, the States will have to scramble for resources to make similar hikes.
According to rough calculations, the hike would put an additional burden of Rs 99,550 crore on states if they go ahead and implement the hike as per the formula devised by the justice AK Mathur panel for the centralgovernment employees.
States that have written to cabinet secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha, PMO and NITI aayog, include West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
“It’s not that states are not willing to implement the pay panel recommendations, but the impact would be so huge that many will not have funds to pay monthly salaries on time,” the officials say.
As per indications, many states may opt to implement the hike only in 2017-18 after having seen the package finalised by the Centre for its employees. Also, most states implement the salary increase only after making modifications to the central pay panel recommendations.
Source: Indian Express
