7th Pay Commission: Government makes this big change on salary hike

7th Pay Commission: Centre has recently made a big change to the recommendations submitted by the panel that have to do with pay hike. Centre has modified the definition of pay anomaly to hike the salary of government servants. The government has also amended the pay anomaly definition and the Department of Personnel and Training issued an Office Memorandum on March 14, allowing the NAC to take any decision of pay anomaly which was not taken by the 7th Pay Commission. The Office Memorandum revealed  by The Sen Times had this to say about the modification: “Where the Official Side and the Staff Side are of the opinion that any recommendation is in contravention of the principle or the policy enunciated by the Seventh Central Pay Commission itself without the Commission assigning any reason.” The government reportedly took the decision to extend scope of definition of pay anomaly in the wake of criticism it faced as the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) had issued a letter on October 30, 2017, which stated that the demand for increase in minimum Pay and fitment formula do not appear to be treated as anomaly, therefore, these do not come under the purview of National Anomaly Committee (NAC).
 
It may be noted that the 7th pay commission recommended minimum pay Rs 18,000 per month while the maximum pay was Rs 2.5 lakh, with a fitment factor of 2.57 times of basic pay of 6th pay commission to be applicable from January 1, 2016. This was to replace the 6th pay commission pay scales, and it was got Cabinet nod on June 29, 2016. However, the central government employees unions had reportedly stated that the approved pay hike was the lowest in the last 70 years and the 7th Pay Commission recommendations were not discussed with them. They had also threatened to go on an indefinite strike demanding hike in fitment factor to 3.68 and minimum pay above the current Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000. The unions later called off their indefinite strike following the pay hike promise made by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
 
On 7th CPC report, in Rajya Sabha on July 19, 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “The minimum pay Rs 18,000 was made on recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission, but government will consider hiking it after discussions with all stakeholders, once the proposal in this regard will be submitted to government.” The government had then formed NAC in September, 2016 to resolve pay anomalies arising out of the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission’s recommendations.

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The central government employees now are expecting that the DoPT Office Memorandum, dated March 14, related to pay anomalies beyond the 7th Pay Commission recommendations would be solved soon.