Cabinet clears 7th pay panel recommendations; govt staff salaries to rise

New Delhi:  The Cabinet on Wednesday approved recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission for over 1 crore government employees and pensioners. The recommendations will result in a hike in salaries of nearly 50 lakh central government employees and payouts of 58 lakh pensioners. The pay panel had in November last year recommended 14.27 percent hike in basic pay at junior levels, the lowest in 70 years. The previous 6th Pay Commission had recommended a 20 percent hike which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008. The recommendations amounted to 23.55 percent overall hike in salaries, allowances and pension involving an additional burden of Rs 1.02 lakh crore or nearly 0.7 percent of the GDP. [caption id=“attachment_2862358” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] The government set up an Empowered Committee of Secretaries under Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha in January to look into the pay commission recommendations. The committee has since submitted its report to the Finance Ministry, Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa had said on Monday, adding the ministry will draft a cabinet note based on the report. The commission has recommended a minimum pay of Rs 18,000 per month, fixed an upper ceiling at Rs 2,25,000 per month for Apex Scale and Rs 2,50,000 per month for Cabinet Secretary and others at present at the same pay level. The date of implementation for the recommendations is 1 January, 2016. Of the total outgo, increase in pay will account for an expenditure of Rs 39,100 crore, increase in allowances take up another Rs 29,300 crore while pension increase will entail an expenditure of Rs 33,700 crore. The pay panel has also recommended ‘one rank one pension’ kind of set-up for the central government’s all civil employees, Central Armed Police Forces as well as defence personnel to bring “parity between past pensioners and current retirees with the same length of service” who retired before 1 January, 2016. With IANS