Sixth pay commission: MP govt employees on strike

Sixth pay commission: MP govt employees on strike

September 11, 2008, 3:08 IST

As many as 450,000 employees of the MP government today went on strike in protest against the state cabinet decision to approve interim relief instead of implementing sixth pay commission recommendations, as have been promised by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Though Madhya Pradesh is the first state to revise pay scales in accordance with the pay commission recommendations, it has asked for “rationalisation” from the pay commission.

The state cabinet yesterday approved 20 per cent interim relief to employees by merging their basic pay and grade pay.

“We want to rationalise pay recommendations since there are differences in central and government grades for similar posts. The number of central government employees in various grades under similar pay-scale is low than those in state government,” Raghavji, State finance minister, told Business Standard, adding, “We have approved interim relief to pay some cash relief to our employees with immediate effect, in view of the coming festive season. We have demanded rationalisation in lower and higher grade pay-scales from the pay commission and hope that a final decision will come soon. We also hope that employees will withdraw their strike.”

The central government recommended pay scale is Greek to many employees. For example a sub-inspected in police department and inspector will get the same salary after implementation of recommendation of the sixth pay commission.

Similarly an upper division clerk and section officer in a department will draw the same salary if state government implements the recommendations. “This will make the promotion procedure in various departments typical and will disturb the discipline among employees,” Raghavji said.

The state has approximately 1.5 lakh employees under Rs 5,500-8,800. After revision, this scale will be converted to Rs 9,300-34,800 and bring many a senior employees like tehsildar, inspectors and sections officers at par with their subordinates.

“How will we motivate employees if they do not have promotion chances,” Raghavji said.

Further higher grade employees, more than one lakh in number, are under Rs 1,200-16,500 scale. These employees have been recommended only 20 per cent hike while higher rank officials (additional directors and directors of various departments under Rs 14,300-18,300 and Rs 16,400-20,000 have been recommended a hike of 50-60 per cent.

“We have demanded to rationalise the lower pay scale for high rank officials,” the minister said further.

The State government has also demanded 50 per cent contribution from the pay commission. At present the state has to shell out Rs 2,500 crore more from state kitty to meet Rs 12,500 crore pay burdens. After a final decision the state will have to arrange another Rs 100 crore.


Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=334026