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| Needed, Rs 3600 Cr for keeping a promise | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 11: Sometimes sarcastically and mostly seriously, the National Conference regime has always been described by many as employees’ friendly government –interestingly, the party is back to power at a time when employees and the government are almost face to face in crucial issue of salaries and retirement age and being employees’ friendly regime it needs a staggering Rs 3600 Crores to keep a promise.
For sometimes now the employees have been on collusion course with government on a range of issues and the report of sixth pay commission came in as a trigger. It was the Governor’s administration in place that employees could not agitate much and left it to the government after a one-day token strike.
As Chief Minister Omar Abdullah takes a review of the state of affairs to fix up his priorities in office, for more than four lakh employees who run the system the number one priority appears to be the issue directly concerning them –hike in retirement age from existing 58 to 60 years and implementation of the recommendations of sixth pay commission. Apart from them there are issues of regularization and reinstatement of those employees who were recruited by the National Conference government (1996-2002) and retrenched by the PDP-Congress government at its own or under Court directives.
While the retrenched employees are mollycoddling Omar’s government by reminding it of Farooq regime’s ‘big heart’, but the two issues –pay revision and retirement age –are staring the government at its face right from the day one in office. These were the two major issues on which the previous ruling alliance wanted to go polls and, of course, these were the issues the present partners of the ruling alliance did electioneering on.
While former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad made mention of his plans of increasing the retirement age and pay revision during his every public meeting, the National Conference leaders promised this as one of the first few decision they would take if voted to power. Sifting through the press reports of election days and collection of press statements issued by these leaders as also the points of their manifestos, it comes out that National Conference and the Congress had they key focus put on the issues of employees –particularly the retirement age and pay revision.
It is learnt that the implementation of recommendations of sixth pay panel involves financial implications of around Rs 3600 Crores –this figure is somewhere around the average annual budget of the Jammu and Kashmir State. On agreeing to implement pay panel report, the government is required to shell out Rs 3600 Crores as arrears of last three years with retrospective effect. There are around 4.30 lakh employees of the state government and their arrears, as per recommendations of pay panel are calculated around Rs 1200 Crores per annum. And then there is enlargement of annual pay package.
It is this whopping figure which made the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to speak in measured words on day one in office. Even though he and his party made promises on implementations of pay panel recommendations but on moving in office the Chief Minister sought to review the issue instead of making an announcement. “We have just moved in…once the portfolios are announced, I will sit with the Finance Minister and Finance Secretary to examine how much and how soon can be done”, the Chief Minister said at his press conference on January 9, when he moved in the Civil Secretariat office.
The recommendations of the sixth pay commission had come at a time when Jammu and Kashmir was under Governor’s rule. Immediately after that elections were announced and there was obvious plea of the Model Code of Conduct. It reflected the unanimity of employees in getting their issue resolved when they went on a token strike in November to press the Governor’s administration on the issue.
In first week of December the state government had constituted a State Pay Committee to study recommendations of Sixth Pay Commission and obtain opinion of the employees. The recommendations of the State Pay Committee are now with the government and the major issue is arranging money to fund payments on account of arrears and hiked salaries.
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