7th Pay Commission: Good news as these employees get big HRA hike

There is some good news on the 7th Pay Commission. The government of Assam has finally agreed to implement the recommendations of the Pay Anomaly Committee and this would provide the employees much relief.

The major benefit would be relating to the HRA. The employees would now get HRA at the rate of 10 per cent of their pay. Those employees who are posted in the district and sub-divisional headquarters and others would get HRA at the rate of 8 and 7 per cent of their pay.

"The state government has agreed to pay the revised rate of HRA as recommended by the Pay Anomaly Committee."said Himanta Biswa Sarma, Finance minister, commenting on the 7th pay commission related news.

The government has also accepted other recommendations of the committee linked to 7th pay commission regarding the payment of hill area allowance to the employees posted in Assam House in Shillong and special teaching allowance to the teachers of Deaf and Dumb School.

"Trained graduate teachers of lower primary, junior basic and pre-primary schools will get a grade pay of Rs 7,400 while untrained graduate teachers and trained undergraduate teachers of these schools will get grade pay of Rs 6,800 and untrained undergraduate teachers will get grade pay of Rs 6,200.", Sarma further added.

On the other hand Central Government employees are waiting for good news on the 7th Pay Commission. While there is hope since the economy is looking up, on the other hand there was a bit of set back when the government decided to discontinue overtime allowance.

It has been clarified by the Department of Expenditure that the government has decided that given the rise in the pay over the years, the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission to discontinue the overtime allowance for categories other than operational staff and industrial employees who are governed by statutory provisions may be accepted, an order by the Personnel Ministry said.

Accordingly, it has been decided to implement this decision across all the ministries/departments and attached and subordinate office of the government of India.

The operational staff are all non-ministerial non-gazetted central government servants directly involved in smooth operation of the office including those tasked with operation of some electrical or mechanical equipment, the order also said.

This decision was taken as per the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission.