Pay hike for Gujarat government employees

Ahmedabad, Dec 24 (IANS) It is bonanza time for the Gujarat government employees as the state cabinet Wednesday decided to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

The implementation of the new pay scales from April 1, 2009, would add a burden of Rs.29 billion (Rs. 2,900 crore) to the exchequer while the arrears from January 2006 will entail another burden of Rs.68.83 billion (Rs.6,883 crore), said government spokesperson Jaynarayan Vyas.

'The cabinet has accepted in full the Sixth Pay Commission recommendation scale-to-scale and the arrears will be paid from Jan 1, 2006 to March 31, 2009. However, this amount will be credited to the employees' GPF in five equal instalments every year and the lock-in period will be five years,' Vyas added.

'About 450,000 employees and pensioners are going to benefit from the new pay scales,' Vyas said.

Pressing for the pay revision, employees unions and federations had given a call of mass casual leave On Dec 5 in which over 900,000 employees had participated. Subsequently, the government began talks with the unions.

A state-level committee headed by Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala with the representatives of various employees union and federations had, in its meeting last week, arrived at a compromise formula on the pay revision and made its recommendations to the state cabinet.

Mafatlal Joshi, convener of the Gujarat State Employees Co-ordination Committee(GSECC), told IANS that their grievance on non-payment of education allowance and transfer allowance still remained unresolved.

'When the central government gives these allowances to its employees, the state too should consider our just demands,' Joshi said.

The state government hopes to mop up Rs.120 billion (Rs.12,000 crore) revenue from value-added tax (VAT) till November this year.