With the term of the Pay Revision Commission, the first constituted after the formation of Telangana, set to expire by this month-end, employees are anxiously waiting to know the contents of the recommendations made by the Commission.
The government has extended the term of the PRC till December 31 after assigning additional terms of reference to it. In addition to examining the pay revision related aspects of the employees, the PRC was mandated to study the existing business rules and staffing pattern at the district and mandal levels as the government wanted recommendations for more clarity and expeditiousness in the decision making process.
The three-member Commission headed by retired bureaucrat C.R. Biswal was constituted in May 24, 2018 with a term of three months and the of the PRC was extended subsequently. It was in February this year, the government had further extended the term of the PRC till the year end asking it to study the impact of enhancing the age of superannuation of the employees and its fall out on the State’s finances.
Employees are confident that the Commission has completed its study on the pay related aspects of the employees after it held negotiations with different stakeholders to understand their aspirations. The Commission members held discussions with employees unions, officials at different levels, especially those of the Finance department to understand the availability of funds for making the recommendations.
The PRC members are reported to have favoured more than one option related to the quantum of fitment benefit that should be given to the employees at different levels as it would ease the burden on the exchequer at least to some extent. Given the precarious financial situation at present, section of employees feel that the implementation of PRC recommendations would be possible only next fiscal, April 1, 2021, after making allocation in the budget.
“Pay revision has to be made with effect from July 1, 2018. There is no clarity yet on the payment of the arrears once the PRC recommendations are implemented,” a senior official said. Officials said that the government could announce notional arrears after fixation of the new pay scales and these could be credited into the employees accounts through different options available to the government like crediting part of the amounts to the GPF accounts in due course.
“Notional arrears are nothing new. Similar method was adopted in the PRCs constituted in the undivided State too,” an employees’ union leader said on the condition of anonymity. The constitution of the three-member Commission, instead of the traditional single member PRC, was itself aimed at speedily studying the situation at submitting the report. “Given the experience of the members, the report should have been completed quite some time ago. The extension given to the PRC is on other counts,” he said.
