7th Pay Commission: Government employees face tough time over pay hike demands
7th Pay Commission: Government employees are staging protests in many places to put pressure on state governments to fulfil their demands, as ruling dispensation has been hesitating to implement the same despite earlier announcements. Notably, central government employees too are still waiting for a hike in salary and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, but they have shunned all protests. Here are the latest developments:
7th Pay Commission: Lakhs of employees in Maharashtra withdrew their strike after two and a half days of protests. They were demanding for implementation of the 7th Pay Commission immediately. The strike was called off yesterday after a meeting of the employees Union with Chief Secretary of State DK Jain. Through their strike, these government employees had almost brought work at government, semi-government offices and hospitals to a standstill. Image source: Reuters
7th Pay Commission: Nearly 17 lakh Maharashtra government employees affiliated with various employee unions went on a 3-day strike from August 7 to press for immediate implementation of the 7th Pay commission. The employees' union also demanded raising the retirement age from 58 to 60 years, 5-day work week, filling 1.8 lakh vacant posts, two years of maternity leave for women officers and timely promotions. Image source: Reuters
7th Pay Commission: In the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Employees Joint Action Committee and J&K Rehbar-e-Talim Teachers Forum yesterday organised a massive protest in the state, demanding implementation of 7th Pay Commission for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers and de-linking their salary from the Central source of funding. As protesters tried to march towards the Civil Secretariat in Srinagar, Police resorted to baton charge and also used water cannon to disperse them. Image source: Reuters
7th Pay Commission: Several protesters were injured and some of them were bundled into Police vans after they tried to march on Residency Road, bringing the traffic to grinding halt. Earlier a large number of employees from different districts, under the banner of EJAC, assembled at Sher-e-Kashmir Park in Srinagar and held demonstration, holding placards inscribed with demands for delinking of their salaries from the Central Fund and implementation of 7th Pay Commission. Image source: PTI
7th Pay Commission: Central government data has recently shown that outgo on pensions will exceed the expenditure on salaries by nearly Rs 10,000 crore in this financial year, and the trend will continue for two more years till March 2021, according to a Finance Ministry document. As per the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, tabled in the Lok Sabha, the outgo towards subsidies and interest payment too will witness substantial increase in the coming years too. Image source: rbi.org.in
7th Pay Commission: On the positive side, the government will be able to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2020-21, from a projected 3.3 per cent in the current fiscal and 3.1 per cent in 2019-20. As per the projections, the salary bill of the government will go up from Rs 1.50 lakh crore in last fiscal to Rs 1.58 lakh crore this year. Image source: PTI
7th Pay Commission: As far as central government employees are concerned, Centre is likely to make a major announcement by hiking central government employees’ salaries on a big national holiday. The demands have been there for years and even the pay panel had to grapple with it before settling for a lesser fitment factor of 2.57 times. However, the demand is for a salary hike via an increase of fitment factor to 3.68 times and a jump in minimum salary to Rs 26,000. Image source: PTI