The Rajasthan government has appointed a three-member committee, headed by former Chief Secretary D.C. Samant, to study and implement the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission for employees in the State.
Financial burden
The committee, which will have two retired Rajasthan Accounts Service officers as its members, has been asked to make an estimate of financial burden on the exchequer and recommend new pay scales for the government employees. It will submit its report to the State government in three months.
According to official sources, another mandate of the committee is to make suggestions for revising and fixing various allowances payable with different salary slabs. Besides Mr. Samant, the panel's members are D.K. Mittal and M.P. Dixit.
The State government had announced establishment of the committee in the last year's Budget. Since the process for giving pay hike to the government employees has begun, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje may announce implementation of the Pay Commission’s recommendations in her upcoming Budget speech during the ongoing State Assembly session.
7 lakh employees
There are over seven lakh government employees in the State, including those in the Panchayati Raj and local self-government institutions and the urban local bodies. Besides, the number of pensioners exceeds three lakh.
The financial burden on the exchequer will be of the order of ₹10,000 crore if all recommendations are enforced.
Though the State government had given its consent to the Centre for giving the Seventh Pay Commission’s benefit to the officers of all India services in August last year, the recommendations are yet to be implemented for them for want of a final decision in respect of State employees.
Reacting to the decision, the Rajya Karmachari Samyukta Mahasangh said the State government was trying to mislead the employees by appointing a new committee. Mahasangh general secretary Tej Singh Rathore said the new pay structure should be introduced with retrospective effect.
