June 8, 2017: Cabinet ministers today analysed recommendation of the Pay and Pension Review Committee headed by GK Rao and sent the recommendation report to Finance Minister Bhanu Lal Saha for further scrutiny.
Speaking to media Saha was tight lipped about the recommendation, however, he stated, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has expressed his satisfaction and termed the recommendations as ‘very nice’. Saha also stated, Government will implement the recommendations shortly.
Considering the ground realities, it is expected that the State Government will try its best to offer pay-packs to its employees and pensioners. A section employees believes the Government will fix salaries after multiplying basic pay by a fitment factor of 2.57 as per recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission.
Another section of employees are expecting that sensing growing resentment among the employees, Government may opt for higher fitment factor.
However, as no official indication could be obtain as to how the salary would be fixed, most of the employees and pensioners are preferring to keep fingers crossed till the announcement.
Though, it appears to be unrealistic to offer ‘good’ pay pack from Rs 600 crore that was earlier earmarked by Finance Minisiter in the budget, experts opined, financial constraints is not a big challenge. “When former Chief Minister Sudhir Ranjan Majumder announced new pay-pack for employees and pensioners, he took a loan and paid the paid salaries accordingly. The Left Front Government can also cough up extra amount by taking loans”, many experts argued.
