7th Pay Commission: Good news! Even Rs 1,07,450 per month salaries cleared
7th Pay Commission: In a big boost for government employees, their pay has been hiked as per the recommendations of the 7th CPC report. This will go a long way in bringing big relief to these staffers whose salaries demands had been pending for a long time. Notably, the BJP ruled state has implemented its election promise with this announcement. Significantly, Union Cabinet ministers in Modi government had promised the seventh pay commission salary hike before the last state election. The announcement was made by the BJP led Tripura government on Tuesday.
Before announcing the 7th pay commission linked good news, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb had met PM Narendra Modi, and FM Arun Jaitley. This was to ask for assistance of Rs 1,500 crore so that the state could hike pay and allowances of state government employees and pensioners.
Authorities have indicated that the pay hike has been equivalent to the ones recommended by 7th Pay commission. It was announced that the pay structure of the government employees in the state has been revised as per the chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb's promise. This means the salaries of over 219,454 employees stand hiked as of October 1, 2018.
The actual panel that worked on the 7th pay commission issue of revising the pay scale of government employees was headed by ex Assam Chief Secretary P P Varma. The current order is based on this panel's recommendations, Chief Minister revealed to the media. The panel submitted its report to the BJP state government on Friday. However, CM called a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday and cleared it thereafter.
The chief minister said, "The (former) left Front government left a burden of Rs 11,000 crore. Despite that, we could fulfil the demands of the employees. We implemented our promises in a tough situation. To provide higher salaries and allowances to state government employees and pensioners, Rs 7,728 crore will be required annually, including Rs 912 crore additional expenditure." Deputy Chief Minister Jishnu Dev Varma revealed that fixed pay staffers will receive benefits similar to regular government employees.
Now that the pay has been hiked as per 7th pay commission pay matrix, the employees minimum entry level salary is pegged at Rs 18,000 per month for Group-C employees. However, Group-D employees' minimum salaries are Rs 16,000. For state government pensioners the minimum pension under 7th pay commission has been fixed at Rs 8,000 per month, while the maximum amount is Rs 1,07,450 per month.
Deb added, "The Bharatiya Janata Party-IPFT (Indigenous People's Front of Tripura) government implemented its pre-poll promise as the implementation of the 7th CPC report was a longpending demand of the state employees and pensioners." Dev Varma added that the vow made to state government employees and pensioners ahead of the Assembly elections, held in February, now stands fulfilled.
In an interesting aside, it was revealed by Revenue Minister and IPFT President Narendra Chandra Debbarma that the state of Tripura has 4.39% government employees out of a total population of 3.7 million.
Health Minister Sudip Roy Barman revealed the timeline leading up to the clearance of 7th Pay Commission by the Cabinet. He said that the first Cabinet meeting on March 10 decided to set up a 3-member expert committee. It was also decided that the former Chief Secretary P.P. Verma would lead it. He said that the panel submitted its report to the Chief Minister on October 5 and the Cabinet accepted all its proposals in toto.