7th Pay Commission: Central govt employees wait for higher allowances more than for Holi

7th Pay Commission: Central govt employees wait for higher allowances more than for Holi

New Delhi: Just one day remains to Holi and more than 48 lakh serving central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners have not received higher allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations from August last year due to Union cabinet hasn’t still approved the higher allowances.

The central government employees received higher basic pay in August 2016 with arrears, effective from January 1, 2016 on the recommendations of the 7th pay commission but the hike in allowances other than dearness allowance has yet to materialize.

The sources in the Finance Ministry told us on condition of anonymity, “in June last year, the cabinet approved the 7th Pay Commission recommendations but the allowances referred to the ‘Committee on Allowances’ headed by the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa for examination as the pay commission had recommended of abolishing 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances.

“The Cabinet is likely to approve the higher allowances in the next week as the Assembly election results in five states were declared yesterday and the model code of conduct enforced ahead of the elections ceased to be in operation with immediate effect.

The employees can’t receive the higher allowances without the Cabinet approval. In contrast, the higher allowances might not impact employees much but since Holi is round the corner, they will feel the pinch.”

The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, however, has managed to disburse the higher allowances to its employees including pensioners. “FM Jaitley is making all possible efforts to pay them the higher allowances with April salaries”, said the sources.

However, the employees now get allowances according to the 6th Pay Commission recommendations until issuing of higher allowances notification.

TST