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| Too Little Too Late | | |
The Sixth Central Pay Commission which took off in September 2008, and was given effect from January 2006, gave rise to hopes of state Government employees across the country that same will be replicated for them also. While some states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh were prompt enough to announce the implementation of the pay commission recommendation from the same date as was given for central government employees and All India Service officers posted across the country, few other states chose to delay it and set their own modalities. But the situation in Jammu and Kashmir took a different turn when four lakg government employees had to take to streets demanding restoration of the basic right in lieu of their hard work – salary, and the pen-down strike was observed across the state. The Joint Coordination Committee, a conglomerate of employees’ bodies took six months of protest to bring the government across the table so as to show the later’s seriousness about implementation of the pay commission report. Day before the government announced the implementation of the pay commission report starting August this year and also agreed to pay the arrears accruing to this revised salary from January 2006. But the sigh of relief has come to be too little too late, and that too in parts. The Government has decided to pay the arrears in five installments which means arrears ranging from a meager twenty thousand rupees to two lakh rupees will be paid across five financial years and that too deposited in the GP Fund account. Moreover there is a moratorium on drawl of money from the said account. Thus the employees could not see any immediate benefits despite the recommendations of the state committee. It is high time we should go beneath such outcomes to learn what went wrong with the Jammu and Kashmir state that the basic right of its four lakh employees had to be compromised. It was more than the financial burden alone. The dependency on centre more than the desired level has to be blamed for such a chaos and deprivation. The states which implemented the sixth pay commission report concurrently with the centre had enough resources to meet this requirement rather than look forward towards the centre with empty bowl to be filled gracefully as in the case of Jammu and Kashmir. The hiked pay would mean a financial implication of Rs 3600 Cr for the state which is not a big amount to be entirely soaked from the centre but the problem is that we have not been able to generate the resources of our own where the potential is going untapped. The time calls upon the government to reorient its financial strategies to be immune from the financial repercussions of the liabilities in the times to come. There is no denying the fact that the state has enough resources in the terms of tourism, ecotourism, minerals and industries which if organized professionally and under a corporate governance methodology can help generate enough financial resources to meet the budgetary requirement of the state. Coming to the pay commission implementation, the resolved deadlock did not give any immediate relief to the employees still the issue seems to have settled down which has raised questions over the integrity of the team which negotiated with the governments as the employees largely are planning to launch a strategic revised onslaught on the government to seek enhancement in the retirement age to sixty years and also payment of arrears in two installments instead of five. The coming week will be crucial for both the side.
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