7th Pay Commission: Forget pay hike, jobs may not be secure from April 2019

New Delhi, Dec 26: The year was not something to tom-tom about for Central Government employees who have been awaiting good news on the 7th Pay Commission.

There has been a flat refusal by the government about any move to increase the basic minimum pay. However, there are reports that CG employees who have to hold on until April.

New system from April:

From April 1 2019, the manner in which promotions take place will change.The idea is to weed out non-performers. In future, public feedback and ratings would matter while promotions are being awarded.

Better promotions would depend on how the ratings and public feedback is. The Department of Personnel and Training has prepared a full grading system and a proposal has been sent to the government in this regard.

Up to 80 per cent of the weightage will be on public feedback for promotion. This would apply to better appraisal of government employees in the departments where they are directly involved with the public. Grading of officials by the people and their experience during government work will be available in the public domain. The grading will decide on the salary and promotion of the people. The proposed system is being implemented on the basis of what the 7th Pay Commission had recommended. The pay panel had also modified the Modified Assured Career Progression process.

What is MACP:

The panel had said that the Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP) scheme has been further modified. It is expected that the present formulation will address the widespread dissatisfaction prevailing in the earlier system, in which the gain or progression through the MACP was considered inadequate. The 7th Pay Commission had also proposed withholding the annual increments in case of those employees who are unable to meet the benchmark either for MACP or regular promotion within the first 20 years of their service.

In the Rajya Sabha:

Two Rajya Sabha members, Ravi Prakash Verma and Neeraj Shankar had asked the finance ministry, whether there was any proposal to increase the fitment factor from 2.57 to 2.81 times. In August they had asked if there was a proposal to increase the fitment factor to 3.68 times. Minister of State for Finance P Radhakrishnan said that there is no such proposal. "The fitment factor for the purpose of fixation of pay in the revised pay structure based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission is 2.57 which is uniformly applicable to all categories of employees. As the same is based on the specific and considered recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission, no change therein is envisaged," the minister said.

Patience pays:

This is the second time that the government had said that there is no proposal to increase the basic pay. The 7th Pay Commission had recommended a hike in basic pay of up to 18,000. However the employees have been demanding Rs 26,000 as the basic pay. However government sources say that there would be no future pay panels. The hikes would be performance based and will be reviewed every year.