7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances woes plague central govt employees

7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances woes plague central govt employees

New Delhi: Central government employees have not got their higher allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations over the last seven to eight months.

A central government employees union leader, said the government has not released the higher allowances for central government employees for last seven months.

He said the higher allowances issue has affected about 48 lakh serving central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners, who could not pay their house rents, tuition fees of children, installments of home and vehicle loans and insurance premiums.

We were promised in August, 2016 that the higher allowances (as per the 7th Pay Commission) would be given to us within four months, but we haven’t got its till now.

They (the government) tell us that the model code of conduct has come into effect from January 4 to March 8 for five states assemblies poll process, so they can’t announce the higher allowances. Actually they do not intend to pay the higher allowances in time. In October last year, the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa, who is the head of the Committee on Allowances, said, he was ready with the report to submit the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley but Jaitley didn’t receive the report of allowances, the union leader told.

The union leader said even though the 7th Pay Pay Commission was implemented in August, 2016, the central government employees have not yet been given the higher allowances till date.

Earlier, the government has given higher basic pay in August 2016 with arrears, effective from January 1, 2016 to its employees on the recommendations of the 7th pay commission but the hike in allowances other than dearness allowance referred to the Committee on Allowances for examination as the pay commission had recommended of abolishing 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances.

Accordingly, existing allowances are now paid to the central government employees according to the 6th Pay Commission recommendations until issuing of higher allowances notification.

However, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, promised to address the issue of higher allowances after the completion of the polls of the five states.
TST