7th Pay Commission: In this 200 per cent hike, why CG employees have a big ray of hope

New Delhi, Jan 22: There was some good news on the 7th Pay Commission. The government has decided to give a massive hike to Railway employees in their running allowances. This means that the hike would increase the salaried of railway guards, loco pilots and assistant loco pilots by a mammoth 200 per cent.

Currently these employees were getting a running allowance of around Rs 255 per 100 kilometres. Now it has been revised to about Rs 520. The proposal is currently with the Finance Ministry for final approval.

Once approved this would increase the financial burden of allowances from Rs 1,150 crore to Rs 2,375 crore. In addition to this the Railways would also have to pay arrears of Rs 4,500 crore for the period from July 1 2017 to December 2018.

In addition to the hike, there is also good news that such an allowance is exempted from Income Tax. According to section 10(14) of Income Tax Department, transport Allowance to an employee working in any transport business to meet his personal expenditure during his duty performed in the course of running of such transport from one place to another place provided employee is not in receipt of daily allowance.

The Central Government employees who have been awaiting some good news on the 7th Pay Commission would watch these developments closely. They have been demanding a hike in their basic minimum pay, but there has been no decision so far as yet on this aspect.

A source said that the government is doling out benefits in a phased manner. There may not be some announcement relating to a pay hike, but similar benefits would be extended to the CG employees as well. The source confirmed that there would be good news soon, but refused to reveal what exactly the government had in mind.

There is a crucial interim budget which is coming on February 1. It has also now been confirmed that Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would return from the US to present the budget. The government indicated that this would be more than an interim budget, where several announcements for the poor and those part of the farming sector would be made. One also does not rule out that there would be some announcement for the CG employees. If it does not happen in the budget, an announcement would be made in the Cabinet meeting.

The 7th Pay Commission had recommended that the basic minimum pay at Rs 18,000. However the CG employees have been demanding that the basic minimum pay be fixed at Rs 26,000.