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| Govt employees bracing up for another round of strike | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, April 28: One major trouble the National Conference-Congress coalition government bumped into immediately after assuming office earlier this year is again brewing up hot as the employees are bracing up for a fresh round of agitation on the issue of their scales of pay.
In February this year the government was able to effectively handle the employees’ agitation by ensuring a split between two major associations of employees and taking the KAS officers on its side. However, after unveiling of the revised scales of pay, upon which the strike was called off, the employees appear to have left more annoyed than earlier.
While all associations of employees are unanimous in their understanding that they have not been met with a fair deal in fixation of the revised scales of pay, what has annoyed them all is the band structure. In the pre-revised scenario, there used to be 30 scales of pay while in the revised structure the government has clubbed all scales of pay into five pay bands, which has not gone well with the employees.
Associations of the employees argue that besides monetary disadvantages in the scales of pay, the government has not factored in social status of different categories of employees. “Take the example of ‘pay band two’ which has clubbed 12 grades together. You find here a head assistant of education department and a senior lecturer in the same grade”, says HD Qureshi, president of the 10+2 Lecturers’ body.
There are many like Qureshi who have questioned the construction of, what they call as, irrational pay bands. Again in the band two, a head constable and a Deputy Superintend of the Police fall in same pay scale. “Some amount of social status does matter but the government has not taken care of that”, says a Police officer who did not wish to be named. Similarly, in Health department, the Malaria Inspector and the Chief Medical Officer are in same grade of pay.
Representatives of the employees’ organizations say that they have been met with a raw deal as while revising scales of pay the corresponding price index has been completely ignored. “With the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission recommendations the central government employees got full payment of arrears which they utilized in constructions their own houses, buying plots or vehicles or settling down important family liabilities but in our case the arrears have been frozen for next five years”, said another representative of the employees’ body declaring that employees will lodge their protest through sustained strike once the elections were over.
Qureshi said that the committee constituted by the government on pay revision under chairmanship of Financial Commission SL Bhat had recommended formation of 18 pay bands but the government in its final decision dropped down to only five bands.
Another serious flaw with pay revision is that the employees appointed after 2006 have not been covered in the hike and they are all set to join the strike after elections.
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