CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday announced its decision to implement the much-awaited seventh pay commission recommendations aimed at benefitting 12 lakh government employees and 7 lakh pensioners and family pensioners. There will be an average increase of 20% to 25% in the gross monthly salary. The move will cost the state exchequer `14,719 crore annually.

A cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami approved the pay commission recommendations after a high-level committee headed by finance secretary K Shanmugam submitted its report to the government recently. In a statement later, Palaniswami said the government would absorb the expenses considering the welfare of government staff, teachers and their families.”I have given directions to issue the order,” he said.

New pay scale announcement

The revision as per the new pay scale will done notionally with effect from January 1, 2016, but the monetary benefits extended from October 1, 2017. The announcement came after employees held a series of agitations in the past few months seeking interim relief until the implementation of the commission’s recommendations. It even led the Madras high court to pass an order staying the protests as they violated service rules. The employees and teachers withdrew the strike after a stern court warning.
“There is a three-fold increase in HRA, which is much higher than the recommendations of the previous commissions,” said a senior official associated with the pay revision. The minimum and maximum basic pay of `6,100 (office assistant) and `77,000 (department head) have increased to `15,700 and `2.25 lakh. The staff are already getting a dearness allowance of 135% of the basic pay. Palaniswami clarified that the new wage structure based on the 2.57 multiplication factor followed by the Centre.

The maximum pension for government staff will be `1.12 lakh, while the family pension will be `67,500. The upper limit of retirement gratuity has hiked twofold to `20 lakh.
“We welcome the announcement and increase in consolidated and honary pay to contract workers by 30%.However, we are upset the government, citing poor financial viability, denied us arrears payable since January 2016. Anomalies in the pay commission have not been rectified by the government,” Tamil Nadu Secretariat Association president J Ganesan said. Noon meal workers, anganwadi staff and panchayat workers will get a minimum of `3,000 and and maximum of `11,000.