History of
Central Pay Commissions
Since
India's Independence, six pay commissions have been set up on a regular basis
to review and make recommendations on the work and pay structure of all civil
and military divisions of the Government of India.
First Pay
Commission
The first
pay commission was constituted in May 1946, and had submitted its report in a
year. And the importance is on the report. Chairman was Srinivasa
Varadachariar. The first pay commission was based upon the idea of
“living wages” to the employees, this idea was taken from the Islington
Commission and the commission observed that “the test formulated by the Islington
Commission is only to be liberally interpreted to suit the conditions of
the present day and to be qualified by the condition that in no case should be
a man’s pay be less than a living wage." The commission emphasised on the
idea of the living wages and stated that the government which is going to
introduce the minimum wages legislation for the workers of the private industry
should also follow the same principle for its own employees. The commission
basically recommended that the lowest rung employee should at least get minimum
wages.
Second Pay
Commission
The second
pay commission was set up in August 1957, 10 years after independence and
it gave its report after two years. The recommendations of the second pay
commission had a financial impact of Rs 396 million. The chairman of the second
pay commission was Jaganath Das.The second pay commission reiterated the
principle on which the salaries have to be determined. It stated that the pay
structure and the working conditions of the government employee should be
crafted in a way so as to ensure efficient functioning of the system by
recruiting persons with a minimum qualification.
Third Pay
Commission
The third
pay commission set up in April 1970 gave its report in March 1973 i.e. it took
almost 3 years to submit the report, and created proposals that cost the
government Rs. 1.44 billion. The chairman was Raghubir Dayal. The third pay
commission added three very important concepts of inclusiveness,
comprehensibility, and adequacy for pay structure to be sound in nature. The
third pay commission went beyond the idea of minimum subsistence that was
adopted by the first pay commission. The commission report say that the true
test which the government should adopt is to know whether the services are
attractive and it retains the people it needs and if these persons are
satisfied by that they are getting paid.
Fourth Pay
Commission
Constituted
in June 1983, its report was given in three phases within four years and the
financial burden to the government was Rs.12.82 billion.[3] This
commission has been set up on dated 18.3.1987, Gazette of India (Extra
ordinary) Notification No 91 dated 18.3.1987, The chairman of fourth pay
commission was P ←N Singhal.
Fifth Pay
Commission
The Fifth
Pay Commission was set up in 1994 at a cost of Rs. 17,000 crore. The chairman
of fifth pay commission was Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian.
Financial
Impact of Fifth Pay Commission
With the
implementation of the Fifth Pay commission a huge burden was taken up by the
central government. It declared hike in salary of about 3.3 million central
government employees. Further, it also insisted on pay revision at the state
government level. The Fifth pay commission disturbed the financial situation of
both the Central and the State Governments and led to a hue and cry after its
implementation. The Central government's wage bill before the implementation of
the commission’s recommendations was 218.85 billion in 1996-1997 which also
included pension dues and by 1999 it shoot up by about 99% and the burden on
the exchequer was about to Rs 435.68 billion in 1999-2000.With regard’s to the
state government the bill went up by 74%. The state governments which paid
about Rs 515.48 billion in 1997 as salaries, had to pay Rs 898.13 billion in
1999 as salaries. This clearly indicates the burden on the state and the
central government. Many economists[who?] say that about
90% of the revenue of the state went in as salaries.
13 states of India were not in a position to pay salaries to its employees due
to the hike and hence the central government’s help was sought.
Other
recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission
One of its
recommendations was to slash government work force by about 30%. It also
recommended to reduce the number of pay scale from 51 to 34 and to not recruit
to about 3,50,000 vacant position in the government. None of these
recommendations were implemented.
Criticisms
of World Bank on Fifth Pay Commission
The World
Bank criticized the Fifth Pay commission, stating that the Fifth Pay Commission
as the 'single largest adverse shock' to the public finance of the nation. It
also said that the number of employees of the government was 'not unduly'
large, but there was a 'pronounced imbalance' in the skills. It noted that
about 93% of the employees were of 3rd or 4th grade.
Sixth Pay
Commission
Main
article: Sixth Central Pay Commission
In July
2006, the Cabinet approved setting up of the sixth pay commission. This
commission has been set up under Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a
timeframe of 18 months. The cost of hikes in salaries is anticipated to be
about Rs. 20,000 crore for a total of 5.5 million government employees as per
media speculation on the 6th Pay Commission, the report of which is expected to
be handed over in late March/early April 2008. The employees had threatened to
go on a nationwide strike if the government failed to hike their salaries.
Reasons for the demand of hikes include rising inflation and rising
pay in the private sector due to the forces of Globalization. The Class 1
officers in India are grossly underpaid with an IAS officer with 25
years of work experience earning just Rs.55,000 as his take home pay. Pay
arrears are due from January 2006 till September 2008. Almost all the
Government employees received 40% of the pay arrears in 2008 and balance 60%
arrears (as promised by Government) has also been credited in Government
employees account in 2009. The Sixth Pay Commission mainly focused on removing
ambiguity in respect of various pay scales and mainly focused on reducing
number of pay scales and bring the idea of pay bands. It recommended for
removal of Group-D cadre.
Controversy
Several
government services, most notably the armed forces have complained bitterly of
down gradation due to pay commissions exceeding their brief, and introducing
anomalies in the relative scales of pay of government services. At present, the
armed forces have represented to the government for the removal of anomalies
which it is felt that the civil servants on the commission have deliberately
introduced to upgrade themselves vis-a-vis service officers in the defence
forces.
SC constitute a new Pay commission for trial court judges
The chief
justice and other supreme court and high court judges got a threefold salary
hike in the sixth pay commission however the trial court judges were paid low
and a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices P Sathasivam
and J M Panchal constituted a new pay commission for the trial court judges
headed by retired Madras High Court judge, Justice E Padmanabhan for
recommendation of revision of about 14000 trial court judges. This order from
the SC came because of a petition filed by All India Judges Association, which
stated that the first judicial commission which was headed by Justice
Jagannatha Shetty had said that there should be an upward revision of salaries
of lower court judges in proportion to the hike to the judges of high court and
Supreme Court. It also sought direction from the court to the center for
setting up a committee "forthwith appoint a committee of one or more
persons to look into the matter" relating the salary of officers in the
lower judiciary.
No comments:
Post a Comment