Maharashtra News – 7th Pay Commission will take Nine more Months to Implement in the State

Maharashtra News – 7th Pay Commission will take Nine more Months to Implement in the State

Thirteen lakh Maharashtra state government employees and around 7 lakh pensioners will have to wait for their revised pay at least till March 2018 as the KP Bakshi committee, formed in January for implementation of the 7th pay commission recommendations, is yet to begin work.

The three-member committee will start meeting workers’ unions and heads of departments in mid-August and is expected to submit its report by January 2018.

After the Centre announced that the recommendations must be implemented from January 1, 2016, state employees started pressurising the government for immediate implementation. To recommend the revision in the pay scale, the state government appointed the committee under retired IAS officer Bakshi with two principal secretaries as members.

The committee, which took charge in April this year, has held three meetings and asked the secretaries of all departments to collate data on number of employees and their pay scale.

“We have more than 260 recognised and more than 100 unrecognised unions that represent 7,000 cadres. The unions will be invited by the committee for deliberation either individually or in groups. The committee will also meet heads of various departments. This entire process will take at least six months. Hakim committee, appointed to implement the 6th pay commission had submitted its report three months after its appointment,” said an official from the state finance department.

Bakshi said, “We have developed a portal for workers’ unions to submit their demands. We will then hold hearings with heads of departments which will go on for three months and we will need two more months to submit the report. Since our committee is looking into the parity and anomalies, unlike the committee appointed in 2009, we hope that there will be no need of appointing any sub committee on our report. We will submit the report early next year.”

The finance department said the burden of the seventh pay commission will be up to Rs21,000 crore. However, since 15% posts are vacant, the burden is likely to be less as the government has stopped recruiting in the wake of poor financial conditions.

Source: HT