Four years on, no sign of 6th Punjab pay panel report

CHANDIGARH : The Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government in Punjab has announced their 3% dearness allowance ahead of Diwali, but there is still no sign of report of the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission for 7.5 lakh government employees and pensioners.

The three-member pay commission, announced in November 2015, is not willing to give the time-frame within which it would give its recommendations to the state government.

“Employees’ unions and organisations which submitted their representations have been heard. We are now looking at information critically, and more issues are cropping up,” pay commission chairman and former chief secretary Jai Singh Gill told HT on Monday.

Gill said each department was being discussed and there were policy issues that need to be decided before the recommendations for pay revision could be finalised.

The panel had got over 650 representations from unions and associations of government employees and pensioners regarding pay, pension, allowances and anomalies in salary structure, etc.

The inordinate delay in implementation of the new pay scales, increase in allowance and pension revision, coupled with delay in payment of dearness arrears, has riled employees and pensioners, who have started staging protests.

Sanjha Mulazam Manch convener Sukhchain Singh Khehra, who is also president of Punjab Civil Secretariat Employees Association, said, “There is deferment at every stage. DA instalments of 15% have also been pending and the Centre has announced DA hike of another 5% for its employees, whereas all that the state is willing to give is just 3% DA hike that has been pending since January 2018.”

‘FUND CRUNCH, LACK OF SUPPORT FROM CENTRE’

While the state government is drawing flak from the opposition and within the ruling party for delay, it blames fund crunch and lack of financial support from the centre for the delay.

The present government appointed Gill, a 1968-batch IAS officer who superannuated in 2006, in his place in April 2017. In January 2019, chief secretary Karan Avtar Singh had extended the term of the pay commission up to December 31.

DESPITE PROMISE, CONG GOVT STILL TO REVISE PAY SCALES AND PENSION OF 3.5 LAKH GOVT EMPLOYEES AND 4 LAKH PENSIONERS