The top forum representing central government employees is geared up for talks related to salary hike once the 8th Pay Commission is formally constituted, and expects the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the commission to be approved soon by the Centre.
“We are hopeful of the government’s nod for the ToR soon. We expect the same by this month, but it can’t be said for sure,” said Shiv Gopal Mishra, secretary, staff side of the National Council-Joint Consultative Machinery (NC-JCM), while speaking to NDTV Profit.
Notably, the NC-JCM is an official body comprising bureaucrats and employee union leaders, and its purpose is to resolve all disputes between the central government and its employees through dialogue.
The ToR will serve as a broad framework for the 8th Pay Commission, which will hold deliberations with all stakeholders for several months before recommending the fitment factor and other modalities for salary revision.
The NC-JCM will be at the forefront of the discussions with the pay panel. Its views on the ToR was sought by the Centre in January, days after the formation of 8th Pay Commission received the Union Cabinet’s nod. Accordingly, the employee forum had forwarded its draft ToR to the government during the same month.
In the draft document, the staff side of NC-JCM stressed that the minimum salary should be determined on the basis of considering the consumption need of “five units”, instead of three at present.
Under the 7th Pay Commission, the minimum wage was determined by considering the consumption need of three units, with the earning husband of the family counted as one unit, wife as 0.8 unit and two children as 0.6 units each. This was in accordance to the norms laid down by the 15th Indian Labour Conference in 1957.
Mishra, however, is of the view that this methodology is incorrect as the consumption needs of aging parents also needs to be taken into an account. Taking care of parents, apart from being an ethical duty, is also a legal responsibility under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents And Senior Citizen Act 2022, he pointed out.
The staff side of NC-JCM has also called for the merger of unviable pay scales to prevent pay stagnation, which indirectly affects the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme. It has sought the merger of pay scale level 1 with level 2, level 3 with level 4, and level 5 with level 6.
In its recommendations for the ToR, the employee forum also demanded the restoration of the commuted portion of the pension after 12 years, and called for the “recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on enhancement of pension after every five years.”
The ToR to be finalised by the Centre will lead to the much-awaited formation of the 8th Pay Commission. As per the precedent, pay panels usually take more than one-and-a-half years to submit their recommendations to the government, which in-turn requires three to nine months to scrutinise them before issuing the final approval.
The 7th Pay Commission, under which the salaries and pensions were revised with a fitment factor of 2.57, had added an estimated impact of Rs 1.02 lakh crore on the exchequer in financial year 2016-17.
The fiscal impact of the 8th Pay Commission is expected to be Rs 2.4-3.2 lakh crore, Kotak Institutional Equities said in a recent note, while projecting a likely fitment factor of 1.8. Fitment factor, notably, is the multiplication unit used for salaries and pension revision.
. Read more on Economy & Finance by NDTV Profit.