7th Pay Commission: This is what may help fix pay scale, fitment factor woes of 50 lakh employees

7th Pay Commission: 7th CPC has stolen the limelight from all other activities and concerns of central government employees and that too now for over 2 years. Concerns span the wellbeing of as many as 50 lakh central government employees who have been waiting for some good news in their minimum pay scale and fitment factor. These employees are demanding a fitment factor of 3.68 times with minimum pay scale of Rs 26,000. This is after the Union Cabinet revised their minimum pay to Rs 18,000 from previous Rs 7,000 per month, along with fitment factor of 2.57 in June 2016 leading to a major hike in all central government employees salaries. 

It has been revealed that, the government may hike minimum pay to Rs 21,000 and fitment factor to 3.00 times. However, the NDA government at Centre claimed that they are not really looking to hike minimum pay beyond the recommendations provided in the 7th Pay Commission report recommendations.

But looking at  strong quarterly growth numbers of Indian economy and the fact that NDA government will be facing the general elections in 2019, employees are once again hopeful that their much-awaited demands would be fulfilled.

India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers surpassed analysts estimates during fourth quarter ended of FY18 (Q4FY18) with a growth rate of 7.7% which is at 18-month high. 

Besides the quarterly figures, the employees are also optimistic of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's promise. FM Jaitley on June 30 in 2016 promised to hike their pay beyond the recommendations of 7th Pay Commission. Other ministers too had chipped in with similar statements. However, it is also true that an official statement did say that the government is not mulling taking any such step in the future.

However, experts also believe that the permutations and combinations related to politics surrounding the 2019's general elections would also make the Central government look positively at fulfilling the seventh pay commission demands of its 50 lakh employees and a huge number of pensioners too. 

These employees have seen some ups and downs, as there were first reports that mentioned the NDA government is seriously looking at changing the pay scale and fitment factor issue beyond 7th pay commission.