New Delhi, January 29: Almost two years have passed and government has not taken any firm decision to increase minimum pay of government employees but a report said that the government is committed to its responsibilities on Finance Minister’s assurance of raising pay for lower-level employees beyond the suggestion of the 7th Pay Commission, which will be paid from April, The Sen Times reported.
One of the officials of Financial Ministry involved with the process of pay hike told The Sen Times on condition of anonymity that no arrears on pay hike will be paid to central government employees.
According to a report, a source quoted by The Sen Times further said, “It’s an important payment for the financial impact to lower level employees but no arrears on pay hike will be given to employees and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will place it before the Cabinet in the beginning of April.”
The minimum wage of central government employees is Rs 18,000 since January 2016 because the 7th Pay Panel recommended minimum pay from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000 per month while the maximum pay from Rs 90,000 to Rs 2.5 lakh with a fitment factor of 2.57 times uniformly of basic pay of 6th Pay Commission and the recommendations got the Cabinet nod on June 29, 2016.
The central government employees and several of their union leaders argue that the current minimum pay of Rs 18,000 is not enough to live on.
The said that the raising minimum pay might also be useful to complete the pay gap between the highest maximum pay and the lowest minimum pay in the 7th Pay Commission recommendations which has a ratio of 1:14 which was 1:12 in the 6th Pay Scale.
Except for 7th Pay Commission, each and every pay commission prior to 7CPC made up a pay gap between lower paid employees and top officers from second Pay Commission at 1:41 ratio to Sixth Pay Commission 1:12.
In the view of the pay gap, the central government employees unions also demanded of hiking minimum pay to Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000 and they asked for raising fitment factor by 3.68 times from 2.57 times.
The central government employee unions had also threatened to go on an indefinite strike over pay hike on July 11, 2016. But the strike was called off after assurance from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on June 30, 2016 for looking into their “core demand of increasing Pay and fitment formula” through a High-Level Committee.
After which the government had to form the National Anomaly Committee (NAC) in September 2016 instead of the High-Level Committee to resolve pay anomalies.
Last week a report said that the central government employees may get a pay matrix level 5 which will be hiked from April but no arrears on pay hike will be paid to employees.
