As we had reported in our previous article New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees: Sixth Pay Commission. Now, the news is getting hotter in expectations for the Railway Budget, which is slated to come out on July 8th 2009. The new Railways Minister Mamta Banerjee will be presenting the budget.
How much amount of money is expected to be included for Sixth Pay Commission Railway Employees Salary Hike?
Around 14,000 Crore Rs. are expected to be included for the Indian Railways employees for their salary hike as per the Sixth Pay Commission.
What are the developments for implementation for New Pay Band of Indian Railway Employees as per Sixth Pay Commission?
The most recent development has been the implementation of Sixth Pay Commission Salary Hike in Tamilnadu TN. Like TMC< DMK is also a close ally of UPA government. Since DMK has gone ahead and implemented the Pay Commission Salary hike in TN, the same is expected from Mamta Banerjee who is expected not leave any stone unturned for the benefit of the Railways employees.
What will be the expected salary hikes for the Indian Railway employees? The Indian Railway employees can expect a sweet bonanza, if the reports are to be believed.
According to the arrear payment plan, Railways would make 40 per cent of arrear payment in the current financial year.
Rest 60% of the arrears would be paid in the next fiscal. The government on Friday finalised the notification on the pay panel report. It would cost the exchequer Rs 22,000 crore this year.
It is expected that each Railway employee will take home an average of 21 per cent higher salary next month. That is a big amount.
The salary increase for Group A officers will be much more than 21 per cent and in cases of some senior Railway Board officials, the hike is almost 50 per cent
Various teachers' organisations have expressed resentment over the UGC-Pay Review Committee's recommendations, saying the report has fallen short of their expectations as it has several "anomalies".
The Delhi University Teachers' Association has said major demand of teachers for higher pay scale to lecturers so as to attract talent to the university system has not been accepted.
"The demand for introduction of professorship/professor's grade in all colleges to retain talent has not been considered by the committee headed by Prof G K Chadha," it said.
DUTA representatives on Monday met UGC Chairman Sukhadeo Thorat to air their grievances, its president Aditya Narayan Mishra said.
Democratic Teachers' Front, a teachers' organisation in Delhi University, said the recommendations of the Pay Review Committee with regard to pay scales and service conditions failed to reflect its objective of making the teaching profession more attractive.
It said the UGC had earlier suggested 25 per cent higher entry pay for teachers in comparison to the Group A services and three promotions for all teachers so that teachers could have parity with Group A services in terms of career earnings.
The college teachers have been explicitly downgraded by the recommendations which denied them promotion till professor's grade, it claimed. The DTF demanded a review of the report.
Delhi University Principal's Association, which had asked for senior principals' scale for those principals who have already completed eight to 10 years of service, said the committee has remained silent on the issue.
The Committee has recommended "Sabatical Leave" for college teachers but has not mentioned about "principals" categorically, it said.
Professors' posts have been created in colleges having post-graduate teaching in respective subjects. Similar provisions should be made for colleges offering honours programmes, its president S K Garg said.
Indian National Teacher Congress has said teachers have been denied the third promotion in colleges in the form of professorship/professor's grade as demanded since the last 20 years.
The committee's chairperson Rashmi Bhardwaj will meet HRD Minister Arjun Singh to apprise him the anomalies in the pay structure.
Meanwhile, the UGC members on Tuesday started a two-day meeting to discuss the recommendations. UGC will submit the report to the government by Thursday after its consideration.
The UGC-Pay Review Committee, which submitted its report to the UGC on Friday, has recommended a whopping over 70 per cent pay hike with additional allowances and new positions to academicians.
As per the recommendations, at the entry level, a faculty member will join as an assistant professor, not as a lecturer as earlier, and his new pay band will be between Rs 15,600 to Rs 39,100. The teacher at the entry level will be entitled for a grade pay of Rs 6,600. At present, a lecturer's pay scale is between Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500.
A teacher will be entitled for annual increment of three per cent of the basic salary with compounding effect. Certain teachers with good performance record can get four per cent annual increment.
Similarly, the committee has recommended a new band pay between Rs 37,400 to Rs 67,000 for professor against the existing scale of Rs 16,400 to Rs 22,400.
The department of science and technology (DST) that took the lead in formulating a performance-related incentive scheme for research organizations it funds, now plans to implement the scheme on a voluntary basis because some beneficiary organizations are still not convinced of the efficacy of the scheme.The dept of science and technology proposes to scrap annual confidential reports
The Sixth Pay Commission had carried out a study through the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, on a performance-based incentive system, to ostensibly improve the performance outputs of Central government employees.
The study, according to the official website of the pay commission, was aimed at working out a model whereby a base salary is attached to each post based on skills and responsibility and simultaneously, a second component would be payable over and above the salary on the basis of the productivity and performance of employees, either individually or as a group.
The study recommended an annual bonus of up to 20% to employees whose achievements exceed certain targets, which has been accepted by the cabinet. The government has also given in-principle approval to contractual postings in government departments of employees hired from private sector.
As reported previously in Mint, a finance ministry official who didn’t wish to be identified had recently said that DST has already moved to put in place an incentive-based system. “Once DST implements it, we expect there will be pressure on other government departments to follow suit,” this official had added. “Some people aren’t convinced yet and so we will be implementing this on a voluntary basis,” said a senior official in the ministry of science and technology, who didn’t want to be identified. DST is the largest funder, excluding the atomic energy and space ministries, of basic research programmes in the country. It is the most important source of funds for nearly 17 autonomous organizations that are working in a range of fields from astronomy to biology. “But I’m confident that once a few adopt, the rest will come around,” the same official added.
One major change the scheme proposes is to do away with the current annual confidential reports and bring in annual performance management reports. Here a 12-point criteria matrix would be drawn up, that evaluate criteria such as the number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, impact factors of the journals, (These measures refer to how often a particular research paper is cited by peers in the field, and the frequency of well-cited research papers appearing in a particular journal) and the quality and impact of new schemes initiated (by scientists on the managerial side).
“One of the measures suggested for annual review is impact factor of a journal, and citation indexes. However, it would be unfair to use the same scale to compare output in veterinary sciences to (that in) nanotechnology, as nanotech is a much hotter field than vet sciences. A good paper on vet sciences will never be highly cited. That’s how the system works,” said a scientist, who didn’t want to be identified given the sensitivity of the issue, at the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, one of the autonomous research institutes funded by the DST.
Another proposal in the scheme that hasn’t gone down well is to have independent experts from other institutions rate scientists, which, the formulators of the scheme say,will help remove bias and infuse transparency in the rating system, said a DST official familiar with discussions on the scheme.
Moreover, the scheme is expected to be budget-neutral, meaning no extra funds will be provided. “Finance committees are extremely tight anyway. So obviously the extra money will come from cuts in laboratory tests, and stricter controls in procuring equipment,” the scientist from the Wadia institute added.
The department currently plans to allot Rs60-70 crore in the first phase, beginning this year. However, many scientists seem to be receptive of performance incentives, as the only way they can hope for substantial increments is to get promoted. In government labs, scientist grades vary from A to G, the latter being the highest, and on an average it takes about 20 years to go from A to G.
“I think it would be welcome. Even at F and G, pay hikes are not substantial. There are more perks like allowances for subscribing to journals, and increased funds for attending international conferences,” said Madhavan Rajeevan, a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organisation and formerly with the India Meteorological Department, which follows a pay structure similar to DST.
A ministerial committee, set up to look into the armed forces' grievance about pay “anomalies”, is likely to sort out the matter soon. External affairs minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who heads the three-member committee, today said he had discussed the matter with Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and defence minister Mr AK Antony.
“Shortly, I am going to discuss with the finance minister (P Chidambaram),” he told reporters here when asked about the issue. Without giving details of his discussions with the Prime Minister, Mr Mukherjee merely said: “I do hope we will be able to sort out the issue shortly”.
The committee, which also includes Mr Antony and Mr Chidambaram, was set up by the Prime Minister on 25 September in the wake of deep resentment in the armed forces, who complained that there were “anomalies” in the 6th Pay Commission recommendations and that it had lowered the status of their officers.
After the government notification was issued on 29 August, the issues of “anomalies” in the pay for officers was first raised by Air chief Fali Homi Major in his letter in his capacity as acting chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee (COSC). Chiefs of Navy and Army too have been voicing their resentment. Mr Antony has strongly favoured resolution of core issues raised by the three services chiefs in their representation to the government. He wrote to Mr Chidambaram, raising issues of disparities”, including the ones relating to Personnel Below Officer Rank (PBORs).
As the committee headed by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is looking into the armed forces’ grievances over their new pay scales, the army on Wednesday said any decision by the government on the issue will be for the good of the country and the Services.
“The pay anomalies issues is currently with the Cabinet and I am sure it will take care of it. Whatever it decides, it will be for the good of the country and the armed forces,” Vice-Chief of the Army, Lieutenant-General M L Naidu, said on the sidelines of an Army Postal Service Awards ceremony ihn New Delhi.
“They (the committee members) are our national leaders and they will keep all issues in mind before taking a decision. It (pay issues) is not a matter of our expectations,” Naidu said, replying to a query on the course of action the armed forces would take if all their expectations are not met by the Mukherjee committee.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had late last month set up the Mukherjee committee with Defence Minister A K Antony and Finance Minister P Chidambaram as members to consider the four “core issues” raised by the armed forces on what they called a “discriminatory” 6th Central Pay Commission (CPC) report.
In fact, the issues had snowballed into a controversy over the armed forces’ reluctance to implement the Cabinet decision on the CPC taken last month.
Consequently, the 1.5 million armed forces personnel took home their old pay scales in October, while their 3.5 million civilian counterparts got their revised pay scales under the CPC.
To another query, Naidu said pointing out some discrepancies in the CPC was not “defiance”, but professional duty (of the armed forces).
The armed forces are demanding that the government place Lieutenant-Colonels and their equivalents in Pay Band-4, ensure parity in Grade Pay of officers from Captains to Brigadiers with their civilian counterparts, accord the Higher Administrative Grade Plus status in pay scales to Lieutenant Generals and restore 70 per cent pensionary benefits to jawans.
To another question over the misuse of army’s combat fatigues by paramilitary and police forces, Naidu said the army had already informed the Centre and the state governments about it.
“Now, the state governments have taken very strict action, because they have realized that by not insisting on this, it is causing some confusing. Now they have done it (enforce laws against misuse of army uniforms). And hopefully it will be sorted out,” Naidu said.
Asked about the uniforms and camouflages being freely available in the open market, the army vice-chief said as far as clothes, low-quality products are concerned, they were available (but not the Army’s).
“A solution is being worked out and the Home Ministry is doing what is necessary to curb such sales. By law, sale of military uniform in the open market is banned. It should not be available. If it is, there is a separate enforcement agency working on curbing the sale of military uniform. In J&K, they are very actively curbing the sale,” he added.
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