7th Pay Commission: Central government employees overtime allowance scrapped

7th Pay Commission: Central government employees have been demanding a minimum pay and fitment factor hike for quite some time. However, far from getting any salary hike, they have suffered a major money setback. Central government employees overtime allowance has been stopped as of today by the Narendra Modi government. 

A Personnel Ministry statement said the move is in accordance with the 7th Pay Commission recommendations. The Department of Expenditure said that the government is set to accept the Seventh Pay Commission recommendation to discontinue the overtime allowance for categories other than operational staff and industrial employees who are governed by statutory provisions.

According to the statement, the government is considering this move as the expenditure for paying salary over the years has risen substantially. The central government has decided to implement this decision across all the ministries and departments. The operational staff are all non-ministerial non-gazetted central government servants involved in the smooth operation, the report said.

The statement said that the government has asked to prepare a list of operational staff with full justification for inclusion of a particular category. The government may also link the  grant of overtime allowance with biometric attendance. Overtime allowance or OTA for the operational staff will not be revised. They would get the amount as per its order issued in 1991.

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"OTA should be paid only when his/her senior officer directs the concerned employee(s) in writing for staying back in office to attend urgent nature of work," the Personnel Ministry said.

Notably, central government employees have been demanding a hike in their salaries based on a formula greater than the one recommended by 7th pay commission report. They want fitment factor to be raised to 3.68 times and the minimum salaries to Rs 26,000. However, chances of a hike have improved as 2019 elections draw near and the bureaucracy is a massive group especially after the pensioners too are included.