7th Pay Commission pay hike creates millions of unhappy employees

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