Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s decision to hike the salaries of state government employees as per the recommendations of Seventh Pay Commission is said to be aimed at keeping vocal government servants happy as general election is one-and-a-half-year away. The decision will benefit 4.5 lakh state government employees and 3.5 lakh retired employees who avail pension.
The revised salary structure, which will cost Rs 4,500 crore per year to state exchequer, will be applicable from January 1, 2016. The employees will get the revised pay from October and as Dussehra holidays start from September 27, they will be handed over hiked pay packet a day before, Patnaik announced.
It was expected that the chief minister would implement Seventh Pay Commission recommendations for state government employees and make it a Puja gift as keeping government employees happy has been his strategy from day one. Perhaps, he never wanted to repeat the mistake of his late father Biju Patnaik. Biju Patnaik had been physically attacked by government employees in state secretariat at Bhubaneswar after he cancelled some of their perks because of resource constraints in early 1990s. After coming to power in 2000, Naveen Patnaik has so far implemented recommendations of two Central Pay Commissions besides increasing the retirement age of government employees from 58 to 60 years.
However, the salary revision will add to state’s loan burden which has reached Rs 65,000 crore and is expected to cross Rs 76,000 crore by the end of current financial year in March, 2018 due to repeated borrowings. The arrears resulting from salary hike would be around Rs 7,500 crore.
When asked about the financial burden caused by the salary hike, Finance Minister Shashi Bhusan Behera said the state will get Rs 1,500 crore per annum from Indian Oil Corporation that has set up a refinery at Paradip as the tax dispute between state government and IOCL has been resolved recently.
The employees are happy as they have been agitating for long, demanding the implementation of Seventh Pay Commission. In fact, the state government had set up a fitment committee to work out the modalities of implementation and the committee had prepared its report after talking to everyone concerned, including the employees.
Govt thanked
The largest government employees forum in the state, Odisha non-gazetted employees coordination committee, has expressed its gratitude to chief minister after the announcement on Tuesday. General secretary of the forum Braja Kishore Nanda flayed the Centre while hailing the state government.
He said because of the recommendations the the Seventh Pay Commission of Centre, rich employees have become richer whereas poor employees have become poorer as the ratio between rich and poor employees is 1:14. In earlier pay commissions, such high gap was not there, he pointed out. He, however, thanked the chief minister for implementing the recommendations of the two Central Pay Commissions during his rule.
Salary hike soon for teachers?
Besides the new pay for state employees, the CM is most likely to give full salary to 50,000 agitating school and college teachers who had been appointed by private educational institutions that have been receiving government honorarium in the form of block grants. The teachers had allegedly voted against against Biju Janta Dal in the last rural body elections held in early part of this year which had seen the rise of Bharatiya Janta Party. It is estimated that if this section of teaching community has to be placated, the additional burden will be Rs 1,250 crore. But a new dispute has arisen between both sides. Seeing the vulnerability of ruling BJD before election, the teachers have placed more demands which will increase the estimate by another Rs 500 crore. The teachers have been sitting on a dharana in Bhubaneswar since August 16. The meetings between both sides have not found a way to resolve the issue.
School Education Minister Badri Narayan Patra and Higher Education Minister Ananta Das have said if the teachers do not agree to government’s package, nothing can be done. The leaders of agitating teachers have stuck to their demands. The state government is also considering pay hikes for other employees and labourers including anganwadi workers.
Meanwhile, recruitment programmes are being conducted and the chief minister himself has been handing over recruitment orders. Besides, the government has tentatively decided to hike minimum wage of labourers by Rs 50 per day. This is in addition to several welfare measures taken for them in last few months.
