7th Pay Commission pay benefit: While decision on minimum pay scale and fitment factor is still being awaited by government employees,who are looking for the PM Narendra Modi led government to hike fitment factor and make minimum salary Rs 26000, some other news for government staff of this state has come that indicates they may get some great news soon. In a major development, the Maharashtra government has, seemingly, decided to pay 7th CPC arrears to its employees this year. An ET Now report stated that the state Finance Minister, Sudhir Mungantiwar, said this 7th Pay Commission report based move will put a burden of Rs 21,500 crore on the state exchequer. Mungantiwar further said that the allocation will be made in FY19 state budget for payment of salary difference with retrospective effect from January 1, 2016

7th Pay Commission has been in the news today for another reason. It is being reported that dearness allowance (DA) for central employees and pensioners may be hiked by 2% soon. Although dearness allowance may get a hike, there are conflicting reports over whether the government will increase the minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th CPC or not.
 
During September 2017, the government gave its approval for raising 1% additional DA to the employees and dearness relief (DR) to pensioners to compensate for the price rise situation. 
 
As recommendations for 7th Pay Commission were approved, the government had declared two instalments of dearness allowances –- 2% from July 2016, and 2% from January 2017. Thus, 4% has been paid to the employees as of now, with 6 point increase in All-India CPI-IW for the year 2016.
 
The increase in DA is expected to benefit about 49.26 lakh central staff and 61.17 lakh pensioners. The government will reportedly bear a burden of Rs 3,068.26 crore per annum, and Rs 2,045.50 per crore in this fiscal. 
 
The 7th Pay Commission recommendations also stated the revision of HRA when dearness allowance reaches 50% and 100%, but the government decided to revise rates when DA crosses 25% and 50% respectively. But 48 lakh Central government employees are feeling betrayed by the NDA government over their demand for minimum pay hike to Rs 26,000 per month and fitment factor at 3.68 times.
 
A group of ministers, including Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, reportedly gave assurances to consider the demand and hike the minimum pay up to Rs 21,000 and fitment factor at 3.00 times.
 
According to The Sen Times, officials earlier highlighted that the FM is looking into the matter, ignoring the DoPT letter on October 30, 2017, and would take up the matter with the respective stakeholders to implement pay hike from April, 2018.
 
Meanwhile, the government or the department concerned or the ministry is yet to confirm regarding the 7th Pay Commission based pay scale and fitment factor.