No interim hike in salaries for central govt staff

NEW DELH: The sixth Central Pay Commission has no plans to award an interim hike in salaries of central government employees, Finance Minister P Chidambaram informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

The commission has informed the government that it expects to submit its final report within the stipulated date, which is April 4, 2008, he said in a written reply. "Hence, no interim report is contemplated," he said.

The commission has held 20 meetings so far with various associations and department heads, wherein different issues were discussed, the Finance Minister said.

Cancellation of PAN cards: The assessing officers have completed the de-duplication exercise in respect of 11.43 lakh PAN holders, Chidambaram said replying to another question in the upper house.

He said it would not be possible to indicate a time frame by which bio-metric PAN cards will be issued, but the matter is under consideration.

Area based exemption: Government is not in favour of proliferation of area-based exemption from taxes, as they result in economic distortions, reduce tax base and generally do not result in attracting long-term investments, Chidambaram said to a question.