7th Pay Commission: All hopes dashed, end game for CG employees

New Delhi, Mar 08: The last Cabinet meeting before the elections was held on Thursday and there was some very bad news for the Central Government employees where the 7th Pay Commission was concerned.

There would be no further announcement on the hike in basic minimum pay as there would be no other forum available for the government to announce the good news that the CG employees have been waiting for.

With the last Cabinet meeting being held, the Election Commission of India would not announce the poll dates, following which the model code of conduct would come into place.

CG employees would now have to be content with the recent announcements which were related to an increase in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR).
Similar announcements were made by the governments of Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan.

The CG employees would clearly be upset that the government has not taken into consideration their long standing demand. Although there have been some sops that have been doled up, it has not been sufficient. Many say that instead of rolling out these sops, the government could have gone in directly for a hike in the basic minimum pay.

All through officials had made CG employees believe that there would be some positive news on this issue. However now it has turned out that these were just assurances to ensure that the CG employees did not agitate or go on strike.

The basic demand that the CG employees had been making was to hike the basic minimum pay to Rs 26,000. The government had indicated that it would be hiked to Rs 21,000, but it now appears that this action too had not been taken. The 7th Pay Commission it may be recalled had recommended a pay hike of Rs 18,000.