State staff pay revised every 5 years, Centre in 10 years
Representational image
Hyderabad: Despite the Seventh Pay Commission recommending 23.55 per cent salary hike for Central government staff on Thursday, they still lag behind the employees of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh states. This is because the state governments revise salaries once in five years, while the Central government does so for its employees once in 10 years.
While the state government employees have got a hike of around 82 per cent during the last 10 years, the Central staff got less than 40 per cent. This has prompted Central government employees working in AP and TS to join hands and announce agitational programmes demanding a further hike in salaries. Interestingly, the employees of Telangana and AP states have extended their full support to the these agitations proposed by the Central staff.
The Central staff are ahead only in terms of minimum pay over AP and TS staff after pay commission recommendations. The minimum pay prescribed for Central staff was Rs 18,000 per month, while it is Rs 13,000 for TS and AP staff. But even Group-III and Group-IV staff in AP and TS draw a minimum of Rs 20,000 per month. In 2010, the minimum pay for state staff was Rs 6,700 and maximum Rs 55,660. In 2015, it was revised to Rs 13,000 and Rs 1,10,850 respectively in both the states.
At present, there are 55,000 employees and 60,000 pensioners belonging to Central government in TS. In AP, there are about 50,000 employees and 60,000 pensioners. “The 23.55 per cent pay hike recommendation made by the Pay Commission is totally flawed and not in accordance with inflation during the last 10 years. This hike is low when compared with employees of TS and AP. The state staff got 82 per cent hike during the last 10 years, while we got less than 40 per cent hike. The latest pay hike is not going to be of major benefit to Central employees,” said P. Nageshwar Rao, general secretary, Confederation of Central Government Employees.
TS Employees JAC leader G. Deviprasad demanded the NDA government reject the Pay Commission recommendations. “Recommending just 23.5 per cent hike after a gap of 10 years shows the Centre’s negligent attitude towards its employees. Inflation has shot up sharply and prices of essential commodities have increased multiple times during the last decade. The state governments, with lesser revenues, have announced 43 per cent hike after five years but it’s unfortunate that the Centre had limited this to 25 per cent,” he said.
Telangana staff wary of Central pay scale:
The TS Cabinet, in July 2014, had approved implementation of Central pay scales to state employees in accordance with the TRS poll promise. TS employees are now demanding a rollback of this decision as the state government pay scales are more than Centre. When K. Chandrasekhar Rao launched the TRS in 2001, he promised to implement Central pay scales for state staff.
State government employees now argue that at that time, the state pay scales were lower and now the promise has become irrelevant as they now draw more salaries than Central staff. TNGOs president K. Ravinder Reddy said the demand for Central pay scales came up in early 2000s when state government salaries were lower. “Salaries shot up steeply during Congress regime from 2004 to 2014, when two Pay Revision Commissions were constituted and implemented. This apart, the TS government approved 10th PRC, giving 43 per cent fitment in February this year, due to which salaries increased by 82 per cent in the last 10 years,” he said.
TS employees fear that if the Central pay scales are implemented at this stage, they would have to lose part of the hike. Employees with comparatively lower salaries demanded Central pay scales at that time as it would increase their salaries by 40 per cent. However, after the TS government approved 43 per cent hike this year, they too surpassed this maximum hike limit and now are against Centre’s pay scales.
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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