Rajasthan govt employees may get 7th pay benefits before Diwali

JAIPUR: The D C Samant committee, which was formed to make recommendations about implementing 7th Pay Commission in the state, submitted its report to the government on Monday. The report was received by the finance department as chief minister Vasundhara Raje was in Delhi to attend BJP national executive meeting.

Committee's member secretary M S Bhukar submitted the report to additional chief secretary (finance) D B Gupta. The finance department would examine the report and present it to the cabinet in the coming days.

The report would affect the salaries of nearly seven lakh state government employees as well as around three lakh pensioners. As the Navratri festivities are on and the next month would have the Diwali festival, the employees are hoping the government would accommodate their demands and implement the Pay Commission's recommendations as has been done by the central government.

With assembly elections due next year, the ruling BJP too would like to win over the employees by implementing the recommendations. Sour ces said the state government could make the announcement and even release some benefits before Diwali, while grant the revised salaries from January next year.

As per estimates, the state government will have to spend around Rs 10,000 crore in salaries and allowances if all the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission are implemented.

The All Rajasthan State Government Employees Federation presided by Ayudan Singh Kaviya has asked the government to implement the 7th Pay Commission recommendations without any further delay . "The Centre implemented the pay commission for its employees in July 2016. Rajasthan is already late by more than a year. The chief minister should ensure that government employees in the state do not have to suffer any longer," said Tej Singh, the Federation's general secretary . The Samant committee headed by retired bureaucrat D C Samant was formed in February this year to remove anomalies in salaries of state government employees while implementing the 7th Pay Commission. It was mandated to recommend new pay scales for government employees and to make an estimate of financial burden the pay commission recommendations would add to the exchequer.

The committee was supposed to submit its report in May but it kept on seeking extensions in the deadline, even as different employees unions attacked the state government for delaying the pay commission's recommendations. The latest extension the Samant committee sought was in August.