Central government employees must wait another week for update on 7th Pay Commission

Central government employees will have to wait for yetanother week to receive any update on the revised allowance structure asrecommended by the 7^th Central Pay Commission. The EmpoweredCommittee of Secretaries (E-CoS) is expected to convene next week to ponder onthe recommendations before being presented before the Union Cabinet for theirnod.

The 7th pay commission had proposed a total of 196allowances; a Committee of Allowances was formed under the Finance SecretaryAshok Lavasa to screen them. On April 24 this year, the Committee submitted itsreport to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, recommending that 52 allowancessuggested by the pay commission be entirely scraped and 36 of them beincorporated with other allowances instead of dealing with them separately.

The recommendations made by the Lavasa-led review committeeregarding allowance structure were to be tabled before the E-CoS afterconsideration by Department of Expenditure. Following which committee ofsecretaries will table the proposal for implementing the recommendations madeby the 7^th pay commission, complete with the suggestions fromCommittee of Allowances, will be presented before the Cabinet for approval.

Cabinet Secretary PK Sinha will preside over the E-CoS meet,as per reports. Officials from Home Affairs, Finance, Health and FamilyWelfare, Railways, Personnel and Training and Post will also take part in themeeting.

Central government employees have been waiting since for anupdate on the allowances suggested by the 7^th pay commission. It wasrumored earlier this week that some union ministers might meet some seniorofficials to seek updates on the recommendations, inciting expectations in theCentre staff and pensioners.

However, reports of no such meeting were confirmed by eitherthe Finance Ministry or officials who sat in the review committee, adding tothe month-long frustration that central government employees waiting for anupdate since the report landed in the Finance Ministry.

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