Bhubaneswar: Gratitude and greetings for Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik poured in Wednesday a day after his announcement that the state government will implement the 7th pay commission recommendations for state government employees retrospectively from January 2016 and the employees will get its benefit from September onwards.
Close to 25 associations of various departments met the Chief Minister at the Secretariat and thanked him for announcing the hike as per the 7th pay commission recommendations as a Puja gift ahead of Dussehra.
As the Chief Minister landed at the Secretariat at around 11am, a large number of employees gathered at the Secretariat’s palm court to thank him and give him a rousing reception. “The government employees are satisfied, more so because of the steps taken by the state government to do away with the anomalies that existed during implementation of the 6th pay commission recommendations,” said Orissa Finance Service Union president Nihar Ranjan Swain.
Employees expressed pleasure as there has been a 14.5 per cent hike in the salary of the employees on an average which works out to 23 per cent if the house rent allowance is included.
Information shared by some of the staff of the state Secretariat Employees’ Association states that as per the revised hike, the Group D employees will get a monthly basic salary of Rs 18,000 as compared to the present salary of Rs 6,450, while Group C employees will draw basic salary of Rs 19,900. Group B employees will get a basic salary of Rs 35,400 as against Rs 13,500 at present while Group A employees will get Rs 56,100 as basic salary as compared to Rs 21,000 now.
Group A OAS officers at the top most level are likely to draw a salary of around Rs 1,44,200, while the salary of IAS officers is likely to increase to Rs 2,25,000 per month.
However, some employee associations requested the CM to remove disparity in hike between state and Central government employees as the Central government employees have received a better hike.
Orissa Secretariat Service Association president Krishna Prasad Mahapatra said they will see if the anomalies have been really cleared. Some associations have also demanded that the state government must work out on the arrear pay at the earliest.
Reacting to this, finance minister Sashi Bhusan Behera said, “Assessment is underway to work out arrear pay of the state government employees. However, it is yet to be decided whether the reimbursement of arrears would be made in the GPF shape or in some other way. Picture will be clear very soon.”
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