As concerns rose over a missing provision of the 8th Pay Commission Terms of Reference, the Ministry of Finance has issued a clarification to ease apprehensions raised by several labour unions and representative bodies of employees.
Why were the labour unions worried?
After the Terms of Reference (ToR) were introduced, it was noticed that the term 'pension revision' was left omitted, which perturbed labour unions and employee representative organisations.
While previous Pay Commissions had explicitly stated that both pay and pension would be revised, the latest one does not make any such clear declaration. As a result of this omission, employees and retirees got worried that the government was not planning to revise pensions in the 8th Pay Commission, Financial Express reported.
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How did the government quell concerns?
Pankaj Chaudhary, Minister of State for Finance, answered an Unstarred Question in the Rajya Sabha, stating, "The Eighth CPC will make its recommendations on the various issues viz. Pay, Allowances, Pension, etc. of the central government employees."
This quelled worries amid the government-salaried and pensioners alike that the union government would be revising pensions on the lines of previous Pay Commissions.
DA-DR merger not on cards
Along with the question on pension revision, the same Unstarred Question asked whether the union government is planning on amalgamating Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) with basic pay, which has been a demand for long, as reported by Financial Express.
To this, the Ministry of Finance responded, "No proposal regarding merger of the existing Dearness Allowance with the Basic Pay is under consideration at present."
Why were the pensioners worried?
To avert discrepancies between old and new retirees, occasional adjustments of pensions have always been made to prevent older pensioners from falling behind in earnings. Apprehensions rose over the omission of pension revisions, as employees and retirees started to think that their pay wouldn't be adjusted any longer after retirement. But the clarification from the ministry put an end to any such fear.
