the goan I network
PANAJI
Pensive over missing out for nearly two years on pay hikes following recommendations of the VII Central Pay Commission, the workforce of Goa’s some 50-odd state-owned corporations and autonomous institutions have gone knocking at the door of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.
Parrikar’s office was on Monday petitioned to intervene and ensure that the enhanced salaries, which their peers in the employ of regular government departments are already enjoying since November 2016, be made made applicable to them.
The demand was made on their behalf by John Nazareth, the president of Goa Government Employees Association (GGEA), in a letter he submitted to the Chief Minister’s Office on Monday.
Nazareth has drawn attention to the fact that the state, in the case of all previous decennial Pay Commission recommendations, has always maintained parity in implementing the salary hikes for those in the employ of state-owned corporations soon after the benefits were extended to regular Goa government employees.
In the letter to Parrikar, Nazareth said the Corporations’ employees “were expecting” that the VII Pay Commission’s pay-scales would be implemented for them as well soon after government staff were paid.
The delay is causing heart-burn and discontent is brewing among these semi-government employees, Nazareth emphasized while urging Parrikar to intervene.
The Goa government began paying its work force the revised salaries as per VII Central Pay Commission in November 2016, when Parrikar’s pre-decessor Laxmikant Parsekar held the reigns.
Although the enhanced scales were made applicable for all classes of employees from January 2016, the enhanced salaries were paid from December that year.
The arrears for the 11 months between January and November 2016 were reimbursed into the employees’ provident fund and new pension fund.
The additional burden on the state exchequer collectively worked out to about Rs 62 crore per month.
Top government sources said making the Pay Commission scales applicable to semi-government employees would eventually be inevitable.
However, the financial implications will have to be examined especially in view of the fact that in many
cases these state-owned
corporations and autonomous institutions were receiving ‘Salary Grants’ from the government.
