Service Chiefs to meet Minister

With anger mounting over the ‘‘raw deal’’ given to them by the Sixth Central Pay Commission, the armed forces are planning to petition the government to ensure officers and jawans get better pay packages than the ones recommended. The matter is likely to be raised when Admiral Sureesh Mehta, General Deepak Kapoor and Air Chief Marshal F H Major meet defence minister A K Antony on Thursday.

Admiral Mehta said, ‘‘There are always anomalies in the pay commissions, which need to be corrected. We will take it up directly with the pay commission.’’ General Kapoor, in turn, said, ‘‘We are studying the proposals... We will come out with cogent suggestions to the defence ministry. There is always scope for improvement in everything.’’

While the recommendation for a special ‘military service pay’ (MSP) has been welcomed, the huge difference between Rs 6,000 as MSP for officers and only Rs 1,000 for jawans, NCOs and JCOs has attracted sharp criticism.

(Based on News Paper reports)

Unions preparing demonstration

Two days after the Sixth Pay Commission submitted its report to the Finance Minister, employee unions organised demonstration and preparing for more demonstration against the recommendations.

The Confederation of Central Government Employees (CCGE) dubbed the report “totally unacceptable”, the CSSS Gazetted Officers’ Association (CSSSGOA) called for a review as “there are unreasonable differentiations made between the same running pay bands and even the instrument of grade pay has not been able to neutralise the impact”.

The Central Secretariate Non-Gazetted Employess Union organised a demonstration out side Krishi Bhawan on Wednesday terming the recommendations as betrayal of the right of the workers. "We are just getting 10.4 hike which is totally unjustified" said Dalip Singh, general Secretaty of the union.

“The alarming level of growing disparity can be seen between the recommended pay scales. After having a look at the minimum Rs 2,550 (total Rs 5,740) and the highest pay (Rs 90,000), we find that the minimum is only about 6.4% of the maximum,” CSSSGOA president R S Rawat said in a draft memorandum prepared for employees’ preview. “Therefore 1:12 (minimum-maximum pay ratio) is not a reasonable formula when tested on democratic principles of equity, justice and good governance.”

(Based on News Paper reports)

CPC report dissapoints employees

Now that the Sixth Pay Commission report is submitted to the Government and the complete report is available at http://www.india.gov.in/govt/paycommission.htm, at least wait time for report is over. Only implementation part is required. Now since every point is clear, reading the comments in this blog, it seems that most of Central Government Employees are not satisfied with the report. Most of the Group C & D employee are feeling let down. Only Senior class A officers got good pay, but even that is very small compared to corresponding Private Sector pay packaets of Senior Managers/MDs. There are many shocker in report for employess.


Even media, which till yesterday was making noise about increase in the pay in the range of 40%-60% is now realising that the actual increase is much less than that. Times of India , Dainik Jagran and Indian Express have come up with stories of this nature in today's edition.

Pay Commission Report Details

The Sixth Central Pay Commission submitted its Report to the Government on 24th March, 2008. The Report and main highlights can be viewed through the following links:

• Highlights of the Report
• Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission
• Annex to the Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission

Pay Commission Submits Report

Over 4 lakh central government employees are now a step closer to getting higher salaries.

The much-awaited report of the sixth Pay Commission has been submitted to the finance ministry by Justice Srikrishna who heads the commission.

Details are yet not available.

(Source : www.ndtv.com)

Times of India report

Like earlier reports and same salary prediction patterns, Times of India has also predicted upto 42% without HRA and upto 52% with HRA hike in the salary of Central Government Staff. It has predicted that the final report will be submitted on Tuesday. Read full report here.

42% hike in salary : Indian Express

There will be 42% hike in the salary, reported Indian Express Delhi edition today.  It has predicted report will be submitted tomorrow i.e. 20/03/08.

Key point of the Indian Express report:

• Number of salary grades will be pruned to 18 from the existing 33,
• Salary proposed is 35 to 42% higher than what each employee currently gets, inclusive of dearness pay and dearness allowance.
• The house rent allowance will become city-specific with those living in metros getting the full 30% of the basic salary. But for other towns, the HRA could be capped at 15% of the basic salary.

Read full report at http://www.indianexpress.com/story/286200.html

Report after Holi : Times of India

Time of India has predicted in its report that the final report of the CPC is ready and  will be out any day after Holi.

Lakhs of central government employees will know their new salary scales any day after Holi as the Sixth Pay Commission is almost ready with its final report, subject to some possible changes in the wake of formal or informal interactions with finance ministry. 
   Commission sources, however, remained tightlipped on the quantum of salary hike. “It is a closely guarded secret at our highest levels and may undergo last-minute changes,” they said. 
   The sources, however, indicated a “moderate” jump despite the soaring hopes of most government employees — ranging from 20% to 120% of their present gross emoluments — when corporate salaries are at an all-time high. “The finance minister has said that ‘legitimate expectations’ of government employees would be met. The commission, in consultation with the finance ministry, has to ensure that their definitions of ‘legitimate expectations’ do not clash. This, because the money, after all, will be provided by a tight-fisted finance ministry,” the sources said. 
   The new scales would also decide the emoluments of defence and paramilitary forces, besides post-retirement benefits of all employees and officers, including the pension they would draw. That the countdown has begun was indicated in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday when minister of state for finance, P K Bansal, said that no proposal for grant of interim relief to the employees was under government’s consideration. The government has recently hiked the employees’ DA from 41% to 47%, calculated on their basic pay taken with 50% (of basic) merged dearness pay. 
   Figures apart, the commission has taken the help of three leading institutes to work out exhaustive compensation and pension regimes. IIM-A has done a study on the feasibility of performancerelated pay (PRP) to government employees while XLRI-Jamshedpur has advised on the total cost incurred by government on its employees in all grades (equivalent of the corporate cost-to-company). 
   The third study, done by Institute of Social and Economic Change (Bangalore), has focused on the government’s oft-stated principle of reducing its post-retirement liabilities in the “long-term”.

(Published in Time of India dated 19/03/08 Delhi edition)

Interesting questions about efficiency

Lakhs of Government employees are waiting patiently for the final report of the Sixth Pay Commission as it's report is shortly going to handed over to the Government. Government employees are genuinely under paid and they are hoping for good increase in their wages. A reader of this blog has raised some quaetions about efficiency in the Government departments by commenting in an earlier post We must scrap Pay Commissions. The reader has send some interesting question, which I think should be discussed openly. Here is the comment send by reader :

I have few questions about payment to government servants and subsequent
increments including pay commissions.

What is in it for the end customer : the citizen of this country, who pays for these pay hikes and is sick of the government servants?

1. What is the out put of a government servant compared to a similarly paid person in private sector?
2. Why do we need so many government servants?
3. What value does a government servant provides to his/ her customer : the ordinary citizen on the street? Ask the customer and not the government servant.
4. Will VI pay commission implementation improve the quality of services and governance provided by government servants?
5. What is the present quality as perceived by a citizen?
6. What is the targeted quality? What is the time frame and what are the trends to be observed?
7. If the quality is not achieved with in the time frame, will the pays be rolled back and recoveries made from the pays of the government servants?
8. Who will be held responsible and punished for the fall, if the quality improvement fails?
   

I think these are intersting and important questions and should be discussed.