7th Pay Commission: What does return of BJP to power mean to CG employees

New Delhi, May 20: Not much good news on the 7th Pay Commission and the exit polls have predicted that the BJP will come back to power.

The Central Government employees have clearly been let down by the government and their desperate wish for an increase in the basic minimum salary has not been addressed.
If the exit polls go right, it would mean that the BJP is coming back to power and this is the same party that the CG employees have complained about for the past five years.

The big question now is if the the BJP comes back to power, will it implement the long standing demand of CG employees who have demanded a hike from Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000. Sources tell OneIndia that it may not be implemented as the government had already made it clear in Parliament that the issue relating to the existing pay panel was closed.

The BJP has often been accused of not giving much importance to this issue. In 2003, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government ought to have implemented the pay panel, but failed to do so. The same was done a year later.

This had affected the CG employees. The hike recommended was 15 per cent as opposed to the 20 per cent that was recommended by the earlier pay panels. Even the existing dispensation had not given into the demands of the employees despite there being several demands and protests, where the employees sought a better hike.

The government has often spoken about the Aykroyd formula. If this is implemented it would come as a big relief for the CG employees. It was made clear by Justice A K Mathur that the government must review the salaries every looking into the data available based on price index.

The commission had recommended that the pay matrix may be reviewed periodically without waiting for the long period of ten years. Salaries of central government employees can be reviewed on the basis of the Aykroyd formula which takes into consideration the changes prices of the commodities that constitute a common man's basket.

The Labour Bureau at Shimla reviews these changing prices of commodities periodically.

This would mean that government employees will not have to wait for ten years for the formation of a pay commission to review their salaries and pension. All salary hikes and other revisions would take place every year taking into consideration the inflation that year.

The government is however at liberty to take into account the recommendations made by the 7th Pay Commission. If it does, then CG employees could expect some good news soon.