Uncertainties brew over how long Bengal govt employees will remain under 6th Pay Commission
Kolkata: Although the Union government has announced that the 8th Pay Commission will be effective from January 1, next year, uncertainties prevail over how long West Bengal government employees will remain under the Sixth Pay Commission.
According to sources in the West Bengal Finance Department, a major technical issue exists that will pose hurdles for the Mamata government to start the process of implementing the 7th Pay Commission.
Explaining the technical issue, a state Finance Department official said that two key conditions should be fulfilled for implementing a new pay commission.
The first is that the dearness allowance in the previous pay commission should be 50 per cent or above. The second key aspect is that once the dearness allowance rate crosses 50 per cent, it should be merged with the basic pay.
“This merger effectively resets the dearness allowance, 50 per cent or above in the previous pay commission, to zero in the proposed new pay commission so that future increments can be decided based on inflation,” the state Finance Department officials explained.
Now, this technical issue is the most difficult hurdle that the West Bengal government is facing in announcing the 7th Pay Commission.
This is because, while the Union government and most other state governments are paying dearness allowance at 50 per cent or above to their respective employees, the West Bengal government employees are currently receiving the dearness allowance at a rate of just 18 per cent.
This means that the West Bengal government will have to bridge the 32 per cent gap to reach the dearness allowance payment level of 50 per cent.
Different associations of the West Bengal government had claimed that this technical glitch would not have occurred had the state government followed the All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) as the benchmark for calculating and determining dearness allowance for its employees, as done by the Union government and most state governments.
With the Union Cabinet having approved a further three per cent increase in dearness allowance rates for Central government employees and pensioners earlier this week, the gap in the DA rates paid to the West Bengal government employees as compared to that to be received by their counterparts in the Union government has increased to 40 per cent.