7th pay commission: While central government employees wait, this state goes ahead, hikes earnings of staff

7th pay commission: It is a truism that the cost of raising salaries of central government employees or even their state counterparts is a costly exercise. However, this state government has gone ahead and shouldered the burden and cleared an increase in their earnings. It has been announced that Haryana has hiked the DA rates of its staff despite the massive costs involved.  With many protests erupting over the 7th Pay Commission report implementation, many state governments have decided to placate their employees by raising their pay and other benefits as much as possible. Following the footsteps of other states, the Haryana government today announced a 2 per cent hike in dearness allowance (DA) of its employees, effective retrospectively from January 1, 2018. 
 
The state government raised the DA on the pattern used by Centre from existing 5 per cent to 7 per cent. Making this announcement in Chandigarh today, Haryana's Finance Minister Abhimanyu said that this would put an additional financial burden of about Rs 309.54 crore on the state exchequer for 14 months from January 2018 to February 2019 in the financial year 2018-19. The Haryana government has decided that the rate of DA admissible to employees, who continue to draw their pay in the pre-revised pay band or grade as per the 6th Pay Commission, would also be enhanced from the existing rate of 139 per cent to 142 per cent of the pay, with effect from January 1, 2018. The state minister reportedly claimed that this would also put an financial burden of over Rs 9.71 crore on the exchequer for 14 months from January 2018 to February 2019 in this fiscal.
 
The minister also said that the rate of DA admissible to staff who continue to draw their pay in the pre-revised pay band or grade as per the 5th Pay Commission has also been enhanced from the existing rate of 268 per cent to 274 per cent of the pay, with effect from January 1, 2018. The Haryana government's move is a step to assuage the feeling of its employees over salary hike issue.
 
Recently, Jammu and Kashmir, which became the first state to implement the 7th Pay Commission for its employees, faced the ire of its nursing staff in a government medical college and its associated hospitals in Jammu. The nursing  staff observed an hour-long token strike, protesting over non-fulfilment of their long pending 7th pay commission demands, including removal of pay anomalies. 
 
It may be noted that J&K government earlier ordered the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, thereby, enhancing the salary of the state government employees by over 20%. 

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Although central government employees have got the benefits of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, the report has failed to meet their aspirations. They want 7th pay commission recommendations to be implemented with a higher fitment factor of 3.68 times rather than 2.57 times which is the current amount.