Seventh Pay Commission Panel Disunity Over IAS, IFS Allocations

The Seventh Pay Commission has stirred up dissent over its pay upgrade allocations for IAS and IFS personnel.

Justice AK Mathur, Chair, Seventh Pay Commission. 

The Seventh Pay Commission, with Justice AK Mathur as its chair, will submit its recommendations to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday. The report calls for an average 15-16 per cent increase in pay, allowances and pensions for Central government employees. This is lower than the 20 percent hike suggested by the Sixth Pay Commission on the basis of which the then government revised the pay scales by nearly 40 per cent with effect from 2006.

“The less generous recommendation reflects that the economy isn’t booming now as it was then,” a member of the Commission told The Hindu. The Modi government is expected to revise pays, pensions and allowances, on the basis of the Seventh Pay Commission’s recommendations, with effect from January 1, 2016, for 48 lakh employees and 54 lakh pensioners.

According to The Hindu’s articles, top sources also said that the report could not reach an agreement on “controversial” issues such as if and how the edge the IAS and the IFS officers enjoyed over other services should be maintained, and the report included multiple dissent notes from its members.

The chairman has recommended that the current practice – in which the pays of all officers recruited in a particular year are upgraded within two years of the first officer of the batch getting promotion – be extended to all services, including defence and central paramilitary services. The dissenting member, however, has suggested that the government get rid of this rule so that pay upgrade for officers, including IAS and IFS, should come off only after they themselves get promoted rather than within two years of the promotion of the first officer of their batch. Another dissenting member has recommended status quo. [...] On the empanelment of officers above the level of joint secretary for deputation to the Centre, the chairman and a member have recommended that officers of non-IAS and non-IFS services of a batch be considered. But the dissenting member suggested maintaining status quo. [...] The commission will also submit a recommendation on an alternative approach to the one rank one pension for defence personnel.