To be implemented w.e.f Jan 2006 n five lakh employees and three lakh pensioners to benefit n arrears to be deposited in GPF over the next five yearsThe Gujarat government has finally decided to accept the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations for its five lakh employees and three lakh pensioners. The decision will be implemented from April 1, 2009 when the employees will start receiving higher pay scales as recommended by the Commission. The decision will entail an additional burden on the government to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore to be paid to the employees and pensioners in arrears, and another Rs 3,000 crore per annum to be incurred on their hiked salaries. Though the government has agreed to implement the Pay Commission’s recommendations with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, it has decided to deposit 20 per cent of the arrears in the employees’/pensioners’ General Provident Fund (GPF) every year. “In view of the current global meltdown, the financial health of our government is not that pink. Hence, we have decided to not pay the arrears in cash to employees/pensioners, but instead deposit the same in their GPF over a period of five years,” state Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala told the employees’ representatives at a meeting in Gandhinagar on Tuesday. The decision to implement the Pay Commission’s recommendations was announced by Vala at a meeting of the Cabinet Sub-Committee set up earlier to study the recommendations. Leaders of the State Employees’ Co-ordination Committee were also invited to attend the meeting to discuss as to how to implement the recommendations.“We are happy that the government has finally accepted our demand for implementing the pay panel’s recommendations. Now, all the agitation the employees’ co-ordination committee had announced earlier has been cancelled,” said Abdulbhai Chuahan, general secretary of the committee.The employees hailed the government’s decision by bursting firecrackers near their union office in the Old Sachivalaya complex. After the Tuesday meeting, Tapan Ray, Secretary, Economic Affairs, Finance Department, told reporters that “the government’s financial health is very good, and that it will not face any difficulty in implementing the Pay Commission’s recommendations.” He said the government had already mopped up a revenue of Rs 12,000 crore through the Value-Added Tax (VAT) till November, and the revenue is projected at around Rs 18,000 crore by the end of the current financial year. He, however, declined to comment as to how the government would tap other resources to shoulder the additional burden to be paid as arrears and hiked salaries. To a query, Ray said the government would later decide on how to implement the Commission’s recommendations for the employees of the government-owned boards/corporations in the state. “They will be considered on the basis of the financial position of a board or a corporation concerned,” he said.
