7th Pay Commission: Congress extends support for government employees on strike

New Delhi: Terming the 7th Pay Commission recommendations the worst-ever, the Congress on Thursday said that it has left central government employees disappointed and the party will support them if they go on strike on the issue in July.

“In the history of CPC during last about 70 years, this is the worst recommendations and needed major surgery to make it acceptable to the employees (including armed forces) and meet their expectation up to some extent.. now the employees are dejected,” said Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken said in a statement here.

“The central government employees, including from the armed forces, are frustrated and disappointed with the government decision to not improve on the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations which are the worst in the history of pay panels in India till date,” he said.

“It is unfortunate that government employees, given 40 percent hike in their respective salaries by previous governments, have now been recommended only 14.27 percent increase. This is unjust and humiliating for the beneficiaries,” he added.

“The federation of government employees, which represents the staff of the Indian Railways, civilian employee of ordnance factories, Post and Telegraph, has decided to go on a nationwide strike from 11 July to express their resentment. We support them and hope that good sense will prevail and the government of India will review its decision,” Maken said.

He said the Fifth and Sixth Pay Commissions recommended 20 percent salary increases but the governments of the day hiked it to 40 percent.

However, Maken said, the National Democratic Alliance government has accepted the report in toto by hiking the basic salaries by just 14.27 percent without giving any respite to inflation-hit employees.

He also noted that all the Seven Pay Commissions since Independence were set by either the Congress or Congress-led governments, and added that the then NDA government during its earlier tenure refused to set up the Sixth Pay Panel in 2003.

He also noted that at present pay ratio between lowest and highest-paid employee is 1:12 which will now be 1:13.8 widening the gap.

On the question of the parity between the lowest and the highest-paid, Maken also faulted the government for not merging the dearness allowance with the basic pay, which was done before the enhancement by application of Pay Commission, and said, this will also lead to the government employees getting lesser amounts in their allowances.