7th Pay Commission Recommendations has begun to emerge!

“It doesn’t come as a surprise that even bits and morsels of information about the recommendations, which is being eagerly expected by nearly 50 lakh employees and pensioners, make headlines.”

The recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission have slowly started to make their way to the media in the form of unconfirmed news. The information that was being extensively discussed by all for more than a week now has finally made it to the websites yesterday.

It has now been confirmed that the 7th Pay Commission will submit is report to the Government next month. With the report being given a final shape, certain pieces of information have already started to hit the media. Some of the workable recommendations of the commission are out.

In 2006, a number of such unconfirmed reports surfaced, when the 6th Pay Commission report was being prepared, because the report was not submitted to the government on time. Due to the delay, there was tremendous curiosity to find out what the report contained. This led to a lot of rumors. Since the internet didn’t become that popular in those days, those rumors were hard to believe. Most of them were circulated by word of mouth.

Now, despite the fact that there are plenty of news sources, since it has become possible to trace the point of origin of the information, such rumors have reduced. This time around, the information was given by the leaders of Federations. Yet, one can neither completely accept them as true, nor dismiss them as entirely false.

Since the government and the major employees federations have their own websites, it has become possible for the information to spread to the corners of the world within minutes. Also, retracts and denials too have become equally fast, thus killing the rumours immediately. With a number of other individual websites and blogs too covering the news about Central Government employees, the readers are now able to differentiate between news and rumours.

There is nothing surprising or shocking in the news reports that have now surfaced. A minimum basic pay of Rs.21,000 is an expected one. The recently released Kerala Pay Commission too has recommended the minimum wage at Rs.17,000 (from 01.01.2014 onwards). The National Council has demanded that it be Rs.26,000 per month.

It is a well known fact that the Grade Pay System had been a source of constant irritation. The dual Hierarchy System (Promotional hierarchy and Grade Pay hierarchy) will come to an end. There will not be any more confusion about the promotions that come through MACP.

The Multiplication Factor of 2.86 does sound very low. NC JCM had pressurized the Pay Commission to fix it at 3.7. The 6th Pay Commission had fixed it at 1.86, and also given Grade Pay. Since the DA now stands at 125% (including July 2015 and January 2016), this could end up being substantial.

Information about retirement is unexpected. Unconfirmed reports claim that the 7th Pay Commission is planning to recommend 33 years in service or the age of 60 (whichever comes early) as the criteria for superannuation. Since the recommendations will be implemented from 01.01.2016 onwards, many are likely to get affected.

And also some key messages revolving about the recommendations are…
There will be no running Pay band and Grade Pay System. The Pay scales will be open ended to avoid stagnation in the scales. The CCA will be separated into two components as it was in the 5th Pay Commission. CGEGIS Insurance Coverage and Monthly premium will be increased. Classification of Posts will be Modified and the 7th Pay Commission recommendation will be implemented with effects from 1.1.2016.