Congress to oppose DA if clause not met

Wants allowance to merge with basic pay when 7th Pay Commission implemented

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ajay Maken said on Sunday that his party will strongly oppose if the 125 per cent increase in Dearness Allowance, which will be due on January 1, 2016, was not merged with the basic pay when the Central government implements the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.

Mr Maken said while the 7th Pay Commission has increased the salaries of higher grade officers by many folds, there will be no benefit for middle and lower level employees. He said injustice was being done to the Central government employees, and his party will fight to safeguard their interest. He said the Union government should protect the interest of the country and its people. “The Congress party is with the government employees in this matter.”

Addressing two meetings to discuss the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission at Sadiq Nagar and R.K. Puram, Mr Maken said the Congress will spare no effort to protect the interest of the government employees, who were its “eyes, ears and brains”, inside and outside Parliament. He said it was necessary to give a good deal to the employees to attract the best brains to the government service, as the government needs the services of the brightest, who come through tough competitions, for the best interest of the nation. He said it was necessary to have the best brains in the government to ensure that in these days of globalisation, the multinational companies do not push their way in and put such clauses, conditions and demands that would be detrimental to the interest of the nation and its people.

Prominent among those who attended the meetings, besides Mr Maken, were Virender Kasana, Abhishek Dutt, Chattar Singh, Barkha Singh, Neeraj Basoya, Manmohan Chadha, Ved Pal, Harish Arora and Dharamveer.

Mr Maken said the Seventh Pay Commission was constituted by the UPA-led Manmohan Singh government on its own in 2013, without the employees resorting to dharnas and demonstrations, and the recommendations of the pay panel were to be implemented from January 1, 2016.

Mr Maken said sadly the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission are against the interest of the lower-level employees, as the overall increase in the wages of the Central government employees would not be more than 14-and-a-half per cent, and in the case of lower-level employees, it would be even much less, though it is being claimed that the increase would be in the range of 24 per cent. He said for section officers, UDCs and PAs, the pay panel’s recommendations will result in down grading.

Mr Maken said this was in sharp contrast to the recommendations of the 5th and 6th Pay Commissions, as the pay increase then, in effect, was nearly 40 per cent. He said it was shocking that 52 allowances have been done away in the commission recommendations, which include transport allowance, linked to DA.

Mr Maken said the house rent allowance has been reduced from the existing 30 per cent to 24 per cent, 20 to 16 per cent and 10 to 8 per cent. He said if there was “good” entry in the CR (Confidential Report) of the government employees, they used to get MSAP, but according to the 7th Pay Panel recommendations, the government employees would get MSAP only if there is a “very good” entry in their CRs.

Mr Maken said that earlier the government employees from Grade 1 to 5 had to pay `30 per month for insurance coverage, but now the amount has been increased to Rs 1,500. For employees in the 6 to 9 grade, the amount was Rs60 per month, which has now been increased to Rs 2,500, and for grades 10th and above, the amount has been increased from Rs 120 per month to Rs 5,000.

Mr Maken said after Independence, it was decided that a pay commission would be constituted after every 10 years to revisit the pay structure of the government employees to give them better wages, to keep in tune with the changing times and also to off-set. He said the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission have become all the more crucial in the 21st century due to globalisation, as they are supposed to remove the injustice against the Central government employees and to make their salaries at par with international wages, otherwise it would be very difficult to attract the best brains to the government institutions.