New Delhi, January 2: Almost two years have passed and now around 50 lakh government employees are now hoping that the government this year might consider their demand for a hike in minimum basic pay under 7th Pay Commission.
Since last two years, central government employees have been demanding that their basic minimum pay must be increased from Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000 a month. Following the implementation of 7th Pay Commission’s recommendation in July 2016, the minimum basic pay was increased from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000 a month based on a fitment factor of 2.57. The hiked pay came into effect from January 1, 2016.
However, the representatives of government employees’ unions also demanded that the fitment factor must be increased to 3.7 so as to ensure that the basic minimum pay is increased to Rs 26,000 per month.
Earlier there were reports that Central government was considering to increase the minimum basic pay of government employees from Rs 18,000 to Rs 21,000 per month.
However, few months ago, some media reports claimed that Ministry of Finance has no plans to revise the minimum basic pay for central government employees.
The Union Cabinet approved the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission on House Rent Allowance (HRA) and other allowances for 48 lakh Central government employees on June 28 last year. The pay commission’s recommendations were cleared with more than 34 modifications.
On the other side, several state government also approved the revision in salaries of employees based on the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.
In September 2017, the Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government also announced a revision in pay scales for 8 lakh state government employees and pensioners. The Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan also announced a revision in salaries from November.