5th Pay Commission submits report

By Our Reporter

SHILLONG, AUG 2: Chief Minister Mukul Sangma today said the finance department has been directed to examine the recommendations submitted by the Fifth Pay Commission to ensure they are implementation at the earliest.

“I have on behalf of the government received the recommendation of the Fifth Pay Commission within the timeline that we have indicated,” Sangma told reporters after the cabinet meeting here on Wednesday.

He said the timeline is definitely because the government wants to complete the whole exercise of examining the recommendation immediately after it is being submitted.

Informing that the finance department has already been asked to examine the recommendation so that the cabinet can deliberate on this, Sangma said, “The idea is that we want to implement the recommendation of the pay commission at the earliest.

According to him, the whole exercise will take some more time before the government takes a call on the matter.

He said that the finance department is invariably involved looking at the challenges vis-à-vis resources and expected outgo of expenditure as an outcome of the implementation of the recommendation.

Asked, Sangma said there are a lot of technicalities involved in examining the recommendations of the Commission.

“We are telling them (finance dept) to study it now and tell us how much time they will require and they will get back to us on this,” he said.

The chief minister, while lauding the commitment of the Pay Commission to do justice to the government’s request, however evade to give a direct reply as to whether the Fifth pay commission will be implemented within this year.

Responding to a query on this, Sangma only said, “What did I say why did we put timeline in a manner that we are able to receive the recommendation.”

It may be mentioned here, the state government’s constituted Fifth Pay Commission headed by former chief secretary PJ Bazeley started its functioning with effect from August 1, last year.

The other members of the commission include Uttam K Sangma, IAS (Retired) & Lambha Roy, IAS (Retired).

In the State there are close to a lakh Government employees. Besides these, there are over 20,000 pensioners.

The State exchequer incurs about Rs 400 crore for the salaries of the employees, which is about 80 per cent of the State’s plan (now defunct) budget.

In the last pay hike, the Government approved a hike of 32 per cent. However, sources said, the present hike would not match the January 2007 hike of 32 per cent and may hover somewhere around the 25 per cent mark.

The seventh central pay commission has recommended a 23 per cent hike in salaries for central government employees.

A hike of about 25 per cent, according to the official, would cost the exchequer an additional recurring burden of about Rs. 100 crore annually.

It may also be mentioned here that the Fifth Pay Commission had held a total of 12 sessions to deliberate upon and decide upon all the issues in connection with its terms of reference.

Apart from this the Commission met and heard the detailed submissions and grievances of 78 Federation Associations between January 27 and May 17,  48 Groups/Individuals  between March 28 and June 2.

In addition the Commission also met and heard the detailed submissions and suggestions of 101 Nos. of Senior Government Officials who were representing their respective Departments/ Directorates between May 3 and May 17.

Earlier, the Commission also visited Kolkata from January 17 to 18 to meet and ascertain the grievances and other issues of the State Government employees located at the Meghalaya Houses at Kolkata and the Meghalaya House at Vellore.

It visited New Delhi from January 19 to 21 to meet and ascertain the grievances and other issues of the State Government employees located at the Meghalaya Houses at New Delhi and the Meghalaya House at Mumbai.

The Commission also visited States of Mizoram, Tripura, Kerala and Gujarat to familiarise itself with the structure of emoluments and conditions of service of different categories of Government employees, the inter-service relationships, the comparative fiscal resources and other relevant factors in such States; acquaint itself with the pay package prevailing in such States and the manner in which such packages were linked to promoting efficiency, productivity and economy through rationalization of structures, organisations and systems within such States; to take into account the existing amenities and facilities admissible to State Government employees in such States; and to examine the existing structure of pension, death-cum-retirement gratuity, family pension and other terminal or recurring benefits which existed in such States.

The Commission visited the Garo Hills region from April 3 to 5, Jaintia Hills region on April 25, West Khasi Hills region on April 28,  East Khasi Hills region on May 29 and Ri-Bhoi region on May 30, to meet and hear the District and Sub-Divisional level State Government employees.