7th Pay Commission: This protest for salary hike hurts the public and the government servants

7th Pay Commission: The demands for salary hikes from a number of government employees across India are rising by the day and what is increasingly becoming a trend is that they have turned to protests to pressurise authorities to hurry up with the decision-making process. The latest news on the issue is the case of Gramin Dak Sevaks. They have been demanding the implementation of 7th pay commission that would put them on par with other postal department employees. However, it turns out, they are not really full-fledged government employees and therefore, their salaries cannot be raised through the medium of 7th CPC. Significantly, the sevaks have received support from the other regular government employees in the postal department. The strike is over one week old and as a result, postal services in rural areas have been impacted adversely and that too pan-India.   

The sevaks have been on strike since May 22. Their numbers are large, around 300,000 in all and they are deployed across the country in rural areas to make the deliveries. Even as the other postal department employees got a pay hike as per the 7th pay commission report recommendations, the Gramin Dak Sevaks failed to get any. Significantly, they have vowed to continue the strike till the authorities agree to their demands, which is to raise their salaries as per their demands.They say they are not being able to cater to even basic needs of their families. In the meanwhile, the public is suffering from the fact that mail and much more, are not reaching them due to the strike. The same is piling up at post offices and getting it all delivered will require another Herculean task now. However, no reaction has been elicited from the authorities so far on the issue.

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Even as these sevaks are up in protest and promising not to take any backward steps, on he other hand, there are the central government employees who have presented their demands to authorities for a salary hike beyond the recommendations of the 7th pay commission. And even though in the beginning they had talked about launching protests, the same was not carried out. Now, they are waiting patiently for authorities to take heed of their demands. What they want is a hike in salaries according to a fitment factor formula of 3.68 times rather than the 2.57 times that their salaries were originally hiked. The reason cited is that inflation has been eating into their salaries and that they are not being able to adequately cater to the needs of their families. Notably, some of the highest ministers in the government had said they would look at these demands sympathetically, but no forward movement has happened so far.