Budget 2019 & 7th Pay Commission: Changes to Fitment Factor or Minimum Pay Highly Desirable

Budget 2019: In Budget 2018, the FM had hiked the pay outs by giving a three-fold appraisal on the salaries of the President, Vice-President, Governors and 100% pay hike to Members of the Parliament (MPs).

In June 2016, the central government had revised the minimum pay from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 18,000/- per month, with a fitment factor of 2.57 times. The central government employees have long demanded a hike in the minimum pay scale to make it Rs. 26,000 from the current Rs. 18000/- along with a fitment factor of 3.68 times from the prevalent 2.57 times./ AFP IMAGE

Budget 2019: Budget 2019 might bring in some good news related to 7^th Pay Commission and it is expected that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may announce some changes to the fitment factor and minimum pay to the central government employees. In June 2016, the central government had revised the minimum pay from Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 18,000/- per month, with a fitment factor of 2.57 times. The central government employees have long demanded a hike in the minimum pay scale to make it Rs. 26,000 from the current Rs. 18000/- along with a fitment factor of 3.68 times from the prevalent 2.57 times. It is highly expected from FM Arun Jaitley to shed light on the Minimum Pay hike and fitment factor changes for the central government employees to clear the confusion that has loomed large on a massive 48 lac strong human resource. In Budget 2018, the FM had hiked the pay outs by giving a three-fold appraisal on the salaries of the President, Vice-President, Governors and 100% pay hike to Members of the Parliament (MPs). The total emoluments to President were revised to Rs. 5 lac per month from 1.5 lac earlier, 4 lac per month for Vice President from 1.25 lac earlier, 3.5 lac for Governors from 1.1 lac earlier, and 2.3 lac for MPs from 1.4 lac earlier. Apart from the salary hike, the Finance Ministry also introduced an automatic revision for the salaries of the MPs every five years, that will be indexed to match inflation. In recent times, following the footsteps of Maharashtra which benefitted over 8 lac central government employees, the state of West Bengal too has approved the recommendations of 7^th Pay Commission and Dearness Allowance (DA) as per 7 CPC will be effective from January 2019 onwards for the state government employees, teachers and non-teaching employees of government aided educational institutions, employees of statutory bodies, government undertakings, panchayats including panchayat karmee and municipal corporations/municipalities, local bodies, etc in West Bengal. As central government employees await more clarity on 7^th Pay Commission recommendations, it is to only wait and watch if the Modi Government will usher some good news to the central government employees for 7 CPC to strengthen its position before General Elections 2019.