Government Employees And Pensioners Deserve Dignified And Fair Treatment From 8th Central Pay Commission – C. Srikumar

IMAGE COURTESY : CENTRAL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES NEWS

In the Union Cabinet Meeting held on 16-01-2025, under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi a decision has been taken to setup 8th Central Pay Commission for the wage revision of the Central Government Employees and the Pension revision of Pensioners. Once the recommendations of the 8th CPC is implemented it will benefit about 28 Lakhs Civilian Employees including Railways & Defence, around 12 Lakhs Armed Forces Personnel and about 10 Lakhs Para-Military Forces apart from 65 Lakhs Pensioners including Ex-Servicemen and Family Pensioners.

Recently, in the Parliament, the Government replied that at present there is no proposal under consideration with Government to set up the 8th Central Pay Commission. After this announcement by the Government the Central Government Employees Organizations including the Staff Side of National Council (JCM), AIDEF and the 10 Major Central Trade Unions represented to the Finance Minister to immediately setup the 8th Central Pay Commission, since the wage revision is due from 01.01.2026.

A debate has already started that the Government decision is to concede the demand of the Unions or keeping the Delhi Assembly Poll in mind, since a large number of Central Government Employees and Pensioners form a major chunk of Voters in the Assembly Elections.

a) Is it a victory for the Trade Unions ?
b) Is it for the Delhi Assembly Elections ?
c) What the employees and Pensioners expect from 8th Central Pay Commission ?
d) What should be the Minimum Wage and Fitment Formula ?
e) What about Employees Governed Under NPS ?

With these questions www.indianpsu.com approached C. Srikumar General Secretary of AIDEF and also a member of the Standing Committee of the National Council (JCM). His replies to the questions raised by www.indianpsu.com is published here for the benefit of our viewers.

No doubt the Trade Unions of the Central Government Employees for the past more than a year is repeatedly representing to the Government to set up the 8th Central Pay Commission, since such High Level Commissions take Minimum 02 years period to finalize their reports / recommendations. Apart from this the fact remains that 7th Central Pay Commission and the Government have done injustice to the Central Government Employees & Pensioners by rejecting the 3.28 Fitment benefit and Rs.26,000/- Minimum Pay demanded by them.

Therefore, the employees were deprived of Proper Minimum Living Wage and Corresponding Allowances. The Central Government Employees are the backbone of the Government and in the Covid-19 pandemic when the whole Nation was confined in their houses in the Lock-down, it was only they who were in the field especially the Defence Civilian Employees, Railway Employees, Health Sector Employees, Armed Forces and Para-Military Forces and Postal Employees had worked.

Thousands of Central Government Employees died due to Covid-19 pandemic while performing their duties and even today the Government has not given Compassionate appointment to their dependents as a special case. Today, as on 01.01.2025 the percentage of DA entitlement is 56% of the Basic pay. The erosion of the value of the Wages has now become enormous and the Government should have merged the DA with Basic pay for all purposes including for the Pensioners. The sky rocketing price rise of Food and other essential commodities had reduced the purchasing capacity of the Government employees and Pensioners significantly. Any decision the Government takes is keeping in mind its political interest also. Therefore, Delhi Assembly Elections also is one of the reason for Government announcing its decision to set up the 8th Central Pay Commission.

The Government Employees have got every right to expect a significant increase in their pay and improvement in other benefits and allowances etc.,. Already the attraction to the Government Job is lost due to withdrawal of the Old Pension Scheme. It is only due to the acute unemployment problem in the Country, youngsters are joining Government Jobs like Agniveer and Contractual appointments.

Therefore, it is essential to attract the talented candidates to the Government service who can promote efficiency with honesty, integrity, accountability and responsibility as they have to serve the people of the Country, who are paying the salary for them. In the 15th Indian Labour Conference (ILC) held in 1957 adopted the famous Dr. Aykroyd formula for fixing the Minimum Wages. This was followed by the successive Pay Commissions also. It is now more than 67 years after its adoption. The concept of “Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan” has undergone serious changes in 67 years, since what was termed as “Luxury” a few decades before are now essential requirement of day-today life.

Moreover, the norms followed is a family consisting of the worker, spouse and two children’s below the age of 14 years. This is considered as 3 consumption units. In this also there is a Gender discrimination wherein the Husband is treated as 01 Unit and Wife is treated as 0.80 Unit and 02 Children 0.60 Units each. Subsequent to a Judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court that apart from Food, Clothing, Housing, Fuel and Lighting, there should be a 6 th Components amounting to 25% of the total Minimum Wage to cover Children’s education, Medical Treatment, Recreation, Festivals and Ceremony. Still there are many items which are left out for arriving the real Minimum Wage. Even many essential Food items including Salt, Coffee Powder / Tea Powder, Curd, Bread, Turmeric, Millets, Ghee etc., are left out in the Dr. Aykroyd formula.

There is no provision for other essential day today items such as Toilet soaps, Shaving Cream, Toothpaste, Tooth Brush, Utensils used for Cooking etc.,. The list of left out items is such a large. Even in Clothing, the Tailoring charges are not included and other Clothing requirements such as Under Garments, Towels, Bed Covers, Blankets, Pillows and Covers, School Uniforms and Laundry Charges are also not included. Due to rampant Privatization of Health Care and Education, the charges for these elements have become beyond the reach of the common man.

Due to fast Technology developments Laptop, Android Phone with Internet Connectivity have also become essential for the day today life, since from birth certificate to death certificate everything has become online. It is also to be taken note that under the Maintenance of Parents and Senior Citizens Act it is Mandatory for an earning member to maintain his / her parents, failing which the individual will be subjected to penal consequences under Section 125 of the Criminal Code. The fact remains that a major portion of the Wages of the Employees and Pensioners are given back to the Government as Income Tax and GST on all their purchases and services whatever they get. All these factor should be taken in to account by the 8th Central Pay Commission while fixing the Minimum Wage and the Fitment factor. The AIDEF and the Staff Side of the National Council (JCM) will start working on this in the coming days.

While the 8th Central Pay Commission will consider the revision of the Pension for those who are governed under the Old Pension Scheme, whether the Government will ask the Pay Commission with regard to the revision of Pension to the NPS Pensioners is doubtful since their Pension is based on the Market. Moreover, the NPS employees will be forced to contribute 10 % of the increased Wages also to their Pension account. This will be an additional burden on the NPS employees. The injustice meted to the NPS employees will continue and that is why AIDEF is fighting against the NPS / UPS and demanding for withdrawal of the Contributory Pension Scheme and to restore the Non-Contributory Old Pension Scheme. As regards the Pensioners there should not be any disparity in the Pension between the employees in the same posts / pay scale retiring after 01.01.2026 and retired prior to 01.01.2026. The parity in Pension should be maintained. Other demands such as restoration of Commuted Pension after 12 years, Enhanced Pension every 5 years etc., will be the major demands so far as the Pensioners are concerned.

There are other issues such as what is going to be the Terms of Reference (TOR) to the 8th Central Pay Commission by the Government and whether the Government will hold any discussion as in the past with the Staff Side with regard to the Terms of Reference (TOR) etc., and what is going to be the time limit for submitting its report etc., has to be seen. Keeping in mind how the Government has deprived and ignored its own assurances for considering the revision of Fitment factor and the Minimum Wage during the year 2016, the Central Government Employees Organizations should come forward unitedly to fight for getting justice to the Central Government Employees and Pensioners, concluded C Srikumar.