Employees’ body against ‘biased’ pay panel report

NEW DELHI: Upset with the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, the Confederation of Central Government employees has demanded that the government bilaterally renegotiate the wage revision issue. The employees��� body will take to the streets across the country on Wednesday protesting against the ���totally unacceptable��� proposals.

Alleging ���total neglect��� of the lower level employees while providing ���huge emoluments��� to senior officers of the government, it said the minimum wage determined by the Sixth Pay Commission was even lower than the one proposed by the Fifth Pay Commission.

���The Sixth Pay Commission has fixed the minimum wage at Rs 5,740 only. The central government employees had demanded fixation of minimum wage as per norms formulated by the 15th Indian Labour Conference which works out to Rs 10,000 per month. The computation has been rejected by the commission on untenable and unsustainable grounds,��� the confederation���s general secretary K K N Kutty said in a statement.

He said if the minimum wage been computed on the basis of the norms laid down by the earlier panel, the percentage increase of the Net National Product over a period of ten years, which the government had accepted in 1997, the minimum should have been determined at Rs 7,400. The statement also pointed out that the Pay Commission has stated that no comparison could be made to the wages in the Public Sector Undertakings.

The confederation also expressed resentment over the proposal to move existing Group D employees to Group C cadres through a process of training saying it indicated that unskilled functions in the government sector would be contractorised or outsourced.

It also said that by recommending withdrawal of the benefit of merger of DA granted to government employees in 2004, the proposed 40% fitment benefit will be reduced to 28%, when the actual fixation takes place. The confederation is also uncomfortable with the idea of introduction of the grade pay concept saying there was no objective yardstick to measure the performance-related pay system.

The confederation criticised the recommendation for corporatisation of Indian Railways saying it was to give impetus to the policy of privatisation and contractorisation.