Bhubaneswar: Quick on the heels of its announcement for implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations for its employees and pensioners, the state government Tuesday declared a 25 per cent hike in salaries of contractual workers at their initial appointment.
A decision to this effect was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the state secretariat here Tuesday evening. The cabinet approved altogether eight proposals which included interest free annual loan of `700 crore to IOCL.
Three of the proposals were related to 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said the cabinet has approved amendment of Orissa Group-B posts (contractual appointment) rules 2013 and the Orissa Group-C and Group-D posts (contractual appointment) rules 2013.
Padhi said the monthly consolidated remuneration of contractual employees will be raised by 25 per cent at their initial appointment and a 10 per cent annual increase till their regularisation.
The revised remuneration will be paid retrospectively from January 2016. The increased remuneration will be paid from September, 2017. As per the cabinet decision, the minimum pay scale of government employees will be `16,600.
The minimum pension/ family pension was fixed at `8,300. Qualifying service of 25 years for full pension is also allowed to all retirees irrespective of their dates of retirement.
In the cabinet meeting, `7,500 crore was earmarked for payment of arrears to government employees post implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations from January 2016. The CS said the dues will be cleared in a phased manner.
Meanwhile, the state cabinet decided to provide interest free loan of `700 crore to Indian Oil Corporation Limited for 15 years beginning 2016-17 fiscal in four installments which the IOCL will repay from the 16th year in installments.
IOCL will deposit applicable VAT/GST as per law every year. As per the decision and an earlier agreement, the central PSU will deposit `2742 crore with the state government towards VAT immediately for the period between December 2015 and June 2017. In return the state government will waive `224 crore interest on it.
The cabinet also approved paddy procurement target of 53 lakh tonne (36 lakh tonne rice) from farmers during kharif marketing season (KMS) 2017-18. Paddy procurement in the last KMS was 54.27 lakh tonne. The CS said the target may also go up if the harvest is good. He said the kharif procurement will be carried out between November 2017 and April 2018 and rabi procurement between May and June 2018.
The cabinet also approved the ‘Mobile Towers, Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) and related Telecom Infrastructure Policy 2017’ for regulation of the sector for which BDOs will be authorized to permit installation of towers and laying of cables in rural areas.
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