New Delhi: The Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) will finally take up higher allowance report on June 1, said Shiv Gopal Mishra, secretary of the National Joint Council of Action (NJCA), which is a centralised union of several central government employees unions, who met the Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha.

The ‘Committee on Allowances’, which examined the 7th pay commission’s recommendations on allowances, submitted its report to the finance minister Arun Jaitley on April 27.

The committee on allowances has suggested some modifications in some allowances that are applicable universally to all employees as well as certain other allowances which apply to specific employee categories, the finance ministry said in a statement.

However, the Committee’s report on allowances under the 7th Pay Commission hasn’t made public.

The committee on allowances report is being currently examined by the Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha set up to screen the 7th pay commission recommendations and to firm up the proposal for approval of the Cabinet.

In June 2016, the government approved 14% pay and pension hike for central government employees and pensioners under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.

The decision on allowances was postponed at that time because the 7th Pay Commission had recommended abolition of 52 allowances and subsuming of another 36 allowances into larger existing ones out of total 196 allowances. Employee unions were opposed.

Accordingly, the government implemented the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission from January 1, 2016 in respect of basic pay and dearness allowances, other allowances continued to be paid at old rates.

So, the finance minister Jaitley referred allowances to the committee on allowances headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa in June last year.

The 7th Pay Commission also recommended slashing the House Rent Allowance (HRA) from 30, 20 and 10 per cent to 24, 16 and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively.

The National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) demanded the government to implement higher allowances without further delay with effect from January 1, 2016.

The NJCA also demanded HRA at the rate of 30%, 20% and 10% instead of 24, 16 and 8%.

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With the financial year coming to an end, the central government employees are still waiting for an answer. When will we get higher allowance under the 7th Pay Commission? The committee which was formed by the government on higher allowance has failed to meet its deadline to submit the report.

There are more than 56 lakh employees who will be getting higher allowances under 7th Pay Commission.

Its been more than nine months since the government has formed 7th Pay Commission recommendation committee on higher allowance. In June last year, after the implementation of 7th Pay Commission, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the formation of Lavasa panel under the chairmanship of Ashok Lavasa, to examine the suggestions on allowance.

According to a India.com report, a Finance Ministry official has said that “Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor Jaitley responsible for the delay in implementation of higher allowance.”

The members of the allowance committee along with National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) leaders will be meeting next week where Lavasa committee is expected to submit the report after discussion with employee representatives, the report said.

NJCA is a joint body of unions representing central government employees.

Earlier, the Lavasa committee was expected to submit the report in October, but since then it got delayed.

The committee is yet to submit the report on House Rent Allowance (HRA) to the government. As reported by Zeebiz earlier, under the 7th Pay Commission, HRA should be paid at the rate of 24%, 16% and 8% of the new Basic Pay, depending on the type of cities while unions demanded HRA at 30, 20 and 10%.

In a reply to a question Lok Sabha, on March 10, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, said that the committee has not submitted its report to the government but the deliberations of the committee are in the final stages.

Source : Zee Business

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7th Pay Commission : On Friday senior officials of Union Cabinet were expected to meet members of the panel over Higher Allowance and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

However sources indicate that the meeting did not take place.

As almost a year has passed, we try to figure out where does the story of 7th Pay Commission stand today. The panel was constituted a day after the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.

This panel on the higher allowance, named ‘Committee on Allowance’ was also expected to make a major announcement on Friday following the submission of the report to the government. However that too didn’t happen.

As we all know, Prime Minister gave the nod for an additional 2 per cent increase in Dearness Allowance(DA) for all Central Government employees. Moreover, along with the DA, for pensioners, the Dearness Relief (DR) has been increased by 2 per cent with effect from January 1, 2017.

While reports claim that the increasing of the Dearness Allowance has benefited 48.85 lakh employees and 55.51 lakh pensioners, the central Government employees are now concerned about the Committee on Allowance’s decision.

But more importantly, although the DA has been hiked, the Committee headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa is yet to submit the reports on other allowances, which were also scheduled to be increased once the 7th Pay Commission was implemented.

However, the National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) on behalf of the Central Government employees expressed their dissatisfaction over the hiked 2% DA and said it should have been increased by at least 3%.

April 1, 2017, was the rumoured date for implementing the allowance hike but now that the report has not yet been submitted, it seems the rumour is to stay as it is.

Following this, the NJCA has warned of dire consequences if the Centre fails to implement the allowance hike from April 1.

Source: India.com

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