It is likely to take one more month for the State government staff to receive salaries commensurate with their revised pay scales.
The employees are anxiously waiting for their revised salaries with 30 per cent fitment benefit for the last two months, but the cumbersome process involved in finalizing the new pay scales is said to have delayed the process.
Implementation of the new pay scales would entail pay fixation along with major components like dearness allowance, house rent allowance and city compensatory allowance which vary depending on the location of the employees.
In addition, calculation with regard to the arrears from April 1, 2020 as assured by the government should form part of the exercise leading to delays.
The government had circulated the guidelines over pay fixation for all the departments and options were obtained from the employees for shifting to new pay scales.
According to officials, pay scales fixed at the department level should be circulated to the Pay and Accounts Office (PAO) in the State capital and director of treasury and accounts (DTA) at the district level after completing employee-wise calculations. The PAO and DTA would enter the new scales into records after duly verifying the details following which new scales will come into effect.
The Finance department embarked upon development of a software for making the entire process easier and the new software is being gradually deployed at different levels.
“The revised pay scales will be paid with effect from next month,” was how a senior Finance official responded when contacted.
It may be recalled that the government had assured that employees would be paid one year’s arrears – from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021 - at the time of retirement while the arrears due from July 1, 2018 till March 31, 2020 had been deemed as notional arrears.
Arrears from April this year will be paid in cash.
As regards the arrears from April, the official said the department would credit them into the accounts of the employees in the coming days before the end of the financial year.
