Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said that an announcement on constituting an ‘official pay committee’ to revise the salaries of State government employees would be made in the 2017-18 budget.
He was speaking after inaugurating the three-day State-level sports and cultural meet of State government employees at Nehru Stadium here on Friday.
Mr. Siddaramaiah said that the proposed pay committee would examine the remuneration of the employees of Union government and of employees of other State governments before presenting its recommendations to the State government. Based on its recommendations, the salaries and benefits offered to State government employees would be revised. More than 5.90 lakh employees will benefit from this. The committee would be asked to submit its recommendations at the earliest, he said.
House rent allowance
Elaborating on the initiatives taken by the State government for the welfare of its employees, the Chief Minister said that the cities were reclassified in 2015 to fix house rent allowance (HRA) for workers. According to this reclassification, cities with a population of 25 lakh and more fell into the ‘A’ category, those with a population of 5 to 25 lakh fell into the ‘B’ category while those with less than 5 lakh fell in the ‘C’ category.
The employees in A category cities were receiving 30% of their basic salary as HRA; those in the B category were receiving 20% of their basic pay as HRA, while those in C category city were being paid 10% of their basic pay as HRA. The Jyothi Sanjeevini health insurance scheme has also been launched for the employees, he said.
Mr. Siddaramaiah called the employees ‘ambassadors of the government’ and asked them to work towards ensuring the successful implementation of welfare schemes launched by the government for the poor and those from marginalised sections of society.
More than 7,000 government employees are participating the sports and cultural meet. The chairman of the State Legislative Council D.H. Shankaramurthy, Minister for Revenue Kagodu Thimmappa, Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports Pramod Madhwaraj, Shivamogga MLA K.B. Prasanna Kumar and Sorab MLA Madhu Bangarappa were present.