Punjab pay panel unlikely to replicate Centre’s model

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 12

Punjab’s sixth pay panel is unlikely to implement pay scales on par with those announced by the Seventh Pay Commission of the Centre.

“The comparison between the posts in the state government and in the Central government is not possible. There are different categories of employees in the state and Centre,” Punjab Sixth Pay Commission chairman Jai Singh Gill told The Tribune. 

This lays to rest speculation and allays fear among the 7.50 lakh employees and pensioners of Punjab, who were worried about the “lowering of pay scales”. The fears arose after the state government recently announced its decision to make all fresh recruitments in the government on pay scales on par with the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission.

Top functionaries in the state Finance Department and government had also hinted earlier that the salaries and wages were on the higher side. Punjab spends almost 45 per cent of its annual revenue on payment of salaries and pensions.

Though the pay commission was announced by the previous Akali-BJP government in November 2015, it is still not willing to give a time frame on when its recommendations will be submitted.

Even as various employee organisations have launched a state-wide protest, Gill said they were still working on the recommendations.

“We have finished meetings with various employee unions and representatives and are still seeking clarification from various departments regarding the posts and pay scales, after some issues had cropped up,” he said. Employees, however, are getting restive. Sukhchain Singh Khera, convener of the Sanjha Mulazzam Manch, an apex body of employee unions, said an inordinate delay in recommending new pay scales had upset employees who had no option but to launch a protest.

Official sources said the commission was still not clear on what the base year should be taken for pay revision. Though the Fifth Pay Commission was announced in 2006, the Akali-BJP government had revised the pay scales in 2011, before the state elections of 2012. Enquiries by the panel are being made on why the pay scales were revised in 2011, and how many categories of employees had benefited from it.