Bonanza for Babus - 7th Pay Commission Report Today

By Vijay Kumar

THE Central Pay Commission has announced that it has completed its deliberations and will submit the report to the Government of India on 19.11.2015 at 19:30 hours. This was the topic of discussion and gossip in Government offices in the last few weeks, reaching the crescendo in the last few days with leaks, guesses and calculations.

There are nearly 50 lakh Central Government employees and more pensioners who get a substantial hike in salaries once in ten years through these Pay Commissions. The Pay Commission Report is a very complicated and powerful document, to understand which the Government will appoint another Committee. The Sixth Pay Commission submitted a 650 pages report. The anomalies and complications are still being litigated at various administrative and judicial levels.

Yesterday there was a pall of gloom all over the Central Government offices on a rumour that the Pay Commission has recommended only a 15% hike, but late evening rumours suggested an increase of 22%.

I almost got beaten up when I suggested to some Government officers that they should opt for a reduction of 10 percent of their salaries.

The Pay Commission report and its implementation has a cascading effect that the States will also be forced to increase the pay packets of their employees. In fact, after the Fifth Pay Commission, some States virtually went bankrupt with not enough money to pay the staff.

Anyway the next few days or months will be spent on calculations and complaints. Every section is going to feel that it had been treated unfairly and somebody else got a better deal. IAS vs the Rest of the World; more HRA, more allowances, more promotions, more … more.

The Pay Commission is expected to suggest some radical changes like pay based on performance, mandatory computer literacy...

There is nothing wrong in giving our babus a good pay packet, but the problem is there are too many of them in the corridors of power that even a small hike will cause a huge expenditure bill for the Government - a rupee hike for each employee will cost the government 12 crore rupees a year. A ten thousand rupees hike will cost the Nation 1.2 lakh crore per year.

Before the 6th Pay Commission, it used to be said that if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.