7th Pay Commission: These government employees get good news, but CG staff waits for announcement

7th Pay Commission: At a time when central government employees are continuing to highlight their pay pleas, some state governments including the BJP ruled states have accepted the demands of their employees and ordered the pay panel recommendations implementation. The state governments of Rajasthan, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Puducherry have already accepted the pay hike demands of their employees.

Now, following the footsteps of the central government, the Rajasthan government has also announced a 2 per cent Dearness Allowance (DA) hike for the state employees. They will now get 9 per cent DA at par with their central government employees. The salary hike has come into effect from July 1, 2018.

The arrears of two months - July and August, will be credited to the General Provident Fund Account of the employees and cash payment shall be admissible from September 1, 2018, it was revealed.

However, the dearness allowance arrears of the employees recruited to civil services on or after January 1, 2004 and who are governed by Contributory Pension Scheme, will be paid in cash.

Significantly, under the 7th pay commission scheme, the Union Cabinet has also increased the DA of the central government employees from 7 per cent to 9 per cent just a week ago.

Also, last week, the Madhya Pradesh government announced the implementation of the pay hike from January 1, 2016. This means the employees will get 32 months arrears as well.

States like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are poll-bound and the pay hike announcement can be seen as a move to appease the government employees whose numbers span lakhs.  

Notably, there are about 48.41 lakh central government employees and 61.17 lakh pensioners who are waiting for some good news about whether Centre will change the fitment factor in 7th pay commission report recomemndations from 2.57 times to 3.68 times. They are a critical for any party and the ruling regime will try to avoid sending any undesired message by not meeting their demands. The central government employees are hopeful that their demands may get fulfilled before the Lok election.

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Currently, the central government employees are getting salaries according to the 7th pay commission which had recommended that their pay be hiked by a fitment factor of 2.57 times. However, they have been demanding a salary hike as per the fitment factor of 3.68 times for a very long time. The hike of 2.57 times took the minimum salary to Rs 18,000 while the demanded hike of 3.68 times will power the minimum salaries to Rs 26,000.

Be that as it may, the Rajasthan state government employees would be very happy at getting this dearness allowance gift with the festive season looming. As far as CG staff is concerned, 7th pay commission issue is simmering and may boil over soon.