7th Pay Commission Rumours – Discarding Grade Pay system – Will it be beneficial ?

Fitment benefit in the form of Grade Pay provided by 6th CPC was computed based on highest pre-revised pay in each of the pre-revised Pay Scale – Fitment benefit advocated by previous pay commisions were reckoned with Pre-revised basic Pay drawn on the effective date of CPC

While Central Government Employees keep their fingers crossed after 7th Pay Commission finished all the interaction sessions with the Employees Federations and started finalising its report to be submitted to Govt, many surmises and speculations have already started filling the air through Internet and through word of mouth about possible 7th CPC pay fixation methods.

Some of those 7th Pay Commission rumours are as follows

• There will be no running Pay band and Grade Pay System
• The Minimum Pay will be Rs. 21000
• The uniform multiplication factor for arriving revised pay will be 2.86
• The Criteria for retirement age will be either completion of 33 Years of service or at the age of 60 Years whichever is earlier.

Interestingly, these rumours are spread out this time carry the tags as “inside information provided by Employees federations which participated in the 7th Pay Commission meetings”. The very character of a rumour is, it may be true or false. God only knows.

Among these, the unconfirmed news that 7th Pay Commission is to discard Pay Band – Grade Pay System may be affecting the Pay Structure of Central Government Employees very much if it is true.

In fact this is an off-shoot of proposal moot out by Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers in its reply to 7th Pay Commission Questionnaire

Click here to read Confederation’s reply to 7th Pay Commission Questionnaire

In this background, we made an analysis as to whether discarding of Grade Pay System would be beneficial to Central Government Employees.

As per the proposal of Confederation, the Pay Band and Grade Pay system evolved by the 6th CPC brought about innumerable anomalies and the same has to be replaced by the Pay scale structure, which was in vogue prior to the implementation of the 6th CPC.

What was Pay Scale Structure prior to 6th CPC ?  How fixation pay was made in that pay scale ?

Obviously, Pay Scale Structure contemplated by Confederation is 5th Pay Commission Pay Structure which is the Pay Structure prior to 6th CPC pay Structure.

Now, let us have a look at the 5th CPC Pay Structure and how pre-revised 4th CPC Pay was revised and fit into the same.

5th Pay Commission Pay fixation Method :

As per Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules 1997 which was notified by Ministry of Finance for implementation of 5th Pay Commission Report, Revised Pay Scales against 4th CPC pay scales are as follows

Further, 5th CPC revised pay of Central Government Employees was worked out by adding DA as on 01.01.1996, two installments of Interim Relief (IR-1 and IR-2) and 40% of pre-revised basic pay with Pre-Revised Basic pay drawn as on 01.01.1996. Then resultant revised basic pay was stepped up to nearest incremented pay in the revised 5th CPC pay scale against the existing 4th CPC pay scale in which the pay was drawn. The following illustration would provide clear cut idea about 5th Pay Commission Pay fixation method

Illustration for 5th Pay Commission Pay fixation

From the above it could be found that fitment benefit of 40% is calculated using the pre-revised basic pay received by an employee as on 01.01.1997. On the contrary, in the case of fitment benefit allowed by 6th Pay Commission in the form of Grade Pay, it has been calculated at 40% of highest Pay in each of 5th CPC Pre-Revised pay scale.

6th Pay Commission Pay Band and Grade Pay hierarchy

We are of the view that if the 7th CPC fitment benefit is calculated on the basis of existing pre-revised pay as in the case of 5th CPC then revised 7th CPC pay would be lesser than the revised 7th CPC Pay calculated by adopting the methods 6th CPC, in which grade pay (fitment benefit) has been arrived at on the basis of highest pay in the pre-revised pay Scale.

At the same time it may not be viable to arrive 7th CPC fitment benefit on the basis of highest Pay in each of Pay Band as 6th CPC Pay Band Structure has been designed in such a way that each of the Pay band accommodates many 5th CPC Pre-Revised Pay Scales

However, even after discarding Grade pay System, if the fitment benefit for 7th Pay Commission Pay revision is provided on the basis of highest pay in the fitment table provided vide O.M 1/1/2008-IC dated 30.08.2008 for the each of the 5th CPC Pre-Revised Pay Scale, then it would be Pay wise beneficial to Central Governement Employees.

We invite valuable opinion of readers in the form of comments to this article so that pay fixation method beneficial to CG Employees community can be highlighted