Seventh Central Pay Commission approved by Prime Minister of India

Prime Minister of India Approved Constitution of Seventh Central Pay Commission

Finance Minister P.Chidambaram announced on 25 September 2013 that the Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh approved the constitution of the Seventh Central Pay Commission. Pay Commission, which will go into the salaries, allowances and pensions of about 80 lakh of its employees and pensioners. The average time taken by a Pay Commission to submit its recommendations is around 2 years. In context with this, it is expected that the recommendations of 7th CPC will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2016.

The setting up of the Commission, whose recommendations will benefit about 50 lakh central government employees, including those in defence and railways, and about 30 lakh pensioners, comes ahead of the Assembly elections in 5 states in November and the general elections next year.

Since the year 1947, six pay commissions have been set up from time to time in order to review as well as make recooemndations on the work and pay structure of civil and military divisions of the Government of India. Government constitutes Pay Commission almost every ten years to revise the pay scales of its employees and often these are adopted by states after some modification.

The sixth Pay Commission was implemented from January 1, 2006, fifth from January 1, 1996 and fourth from January 1, 1986.

The names of the chairperson and members of the 7th Pay Commission and its terms of reference will be finalised shortly after consultation with major stakeholders, Chidambaram said.

About the Central Pay Commission

• The first Central Pay Commission was constituted in May 1946 and its report was submitted by 1947 under the Chairmanship of Srinivasa Varadachariar. The first Central Pay Commission was based on the basic idea of living wages to employees.

• The approval of last or the sixth Central Pay Commission was given in July 2006. The commission was established under the Chairmanship of B.N.Srikrishna with the time duration of 18 months.

• The constitution of the Seventh Pay Commission will include salaries, allowances and pensions of around 80 lakh employees as well as pensioners.

• Recommendations of the Commission will provide benefit to around 50 lakh employees of the Central Government, who also include defence and railways. Apart from this, it will also provide benefit to 30 lakh pensioners.

• The Union Government of India constitutes the Pay Commission after almost 10 years time frame in order to revise the pay scales of employees. The recommendations of Pay Commission are always adopted by all the states in India after a few modifications.

Read More

Finance Ministry Order Issued: Dearness Allowance(DA) to Central Government Employees- Revised Rate effective from 01.07.2013

Finance Ministry Order Issued: Dearness Allowance(DA) to Central Government Employees- Revised Rate effective from 01.07.2013

Click Here to view official order

Read More

Govt launches austerity measures; no creation of new jobs or filling of posts lying vacant for over one year.

Govt launches austerity measures; no creation of new jobs or filling of posts lying vacant for over one year.

Central government on 18 September 2013 (Wednesday) unveiled austerity measures, putting a freeze on fresh appointments, banning holding of its conferences in 5-star hotels and barring officials from executive class air travel, in a bid to check fiscal deficit from going out of control.

Battling slow economic growth and not too robust tax collections yet, the government came out with a slew of measures that will ensure that Ministries and departments will not buy new vehicles, create new jobs or fill posts lying vacant for over one year.

The Finance Ministry on Wednesday issued a circular containing the steps, which will cut non-Plan expenditure by 10 per cent, a day after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram met Financial Advisors of various Ministries to impress upon them the need for austerity and to contain expenditure within the budget target.

The measures aim at restricting the fiscal deficit to the budgeted figure of 4.8 per cent of the GDP in 2013-14.

The Ministry has directed that the size of delegations going abroad should be kept at “absolute minimum.”

“Such measures are intended at promoting fiscal discipline, without restricting the operational efficiency of the government. In the context of the current fiscal situation, there is a need to continue to rationalise expenditure and optimise available resources,” the Ministry said. Mr. Chidambaram had earlier said that he had drawn a red line and would not allow the fiscal deficit to breach the target of 4.8 per cent of the GDP in 2013—14. The various austerity measures helped the government to contain the fiscal deficit at 4.9 per cent of the GDP in the previous financial year, against the budgeted target of 5.1 per cent.

Referring to jobs in government departments, it said there will be a total ban on new posts and those that have remained vacant for more than a year will not be filled except under very rare and unavoidable circumstances.

Click here to view official order

Read More

10% DA hike for Central government employees w.e.f 01 July 2013

10% DA hike for Central government employees w.e.f 01 July 2013

Union Cabinet on 20 September 2013 (Friday) approved a double-digit increase of 10% in dearness allowance from existing 80% to 90 per cent, benefiting 50 lakh Central government employees and 30 lakh pensioners, with effect from July 1, 2013.

Significantly, the double-digit increase in DA has come after a gap of about three years. Since the government uses CPI-IW (Consumer Price Inflation – Industrial Workers) data for the previous 12 months to arrive at a figure for computation of any increase in DA instalment, the percentage hike is based on the retail inflation data for July 2012-June 2013. The previous DA hike of 10 per cent was in September 2010 when the government announced an additional instalment given with effect from July 1 that year.

In April this year, the government announced DA increase from 72 to 80 per cent with effect from January 1, 2013.

Official Release on PIB read as follows:

Release of additional installment of dearness allowance to Central Government employees and dearness relief to Pensioners, due from 1.7.2013

The Union Cabinet today approved the proposal to release an additional installment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners with effect from 01.07.2013, in cash, at the rate of 10 per cent increase over the existing rate of 80 per cent.

Hence, the Central Government employees as well as the pensioners are entitled for DA/DR at the rate of 90 per cent of the basic with effect from 01.07.2013. The increase is in accordance with the accepted formula based on the recommendations of the 6th Central Pay Commission.

The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both dearness allowance and dearness relief would be of the order of Rs. 10879.60 crore per annum and Rs. 7253.10 crore in the financial year 2013-14 ( i.e. for a period of 8 month from July, 2013 to February 2014).

Official order from finmin is expected soon and the same will be posted in this blog immediately on release by finmin. Keep Visiting!!!

Read More

Last date for filing income tax returns extended to Aug 5

Last date for filing income tax returns extended to Aug 5

 The government on 31 July 2013 (Wednesday) extended the last date for filing of income tax returns by five days to August 5.

The due date, which was Wednesday, has been extended in wake of “unprecedented surge” in number of I-T returns being filed electronically.

“As a measure of taxpayer’s convenience, it has been decided to extend the due date of filing of returns from July 31, 2013 to August 5, 2013,” the Finance Ministry said.

As per the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), there has been an unprecedented surge in number of returns being e-filed.

This year till July 30, about 92 lakh returns have been electronically filed, which is 46.8 per cent higher than the returns e-filed during the corresponding period last fiscal.

Read More

Self-Certification of Documents instead of Attestation by Gazetted Officers

Self-Certification of Documents instead of Attestation by Gazetted Officers

Almost all of us might have thought why a certificate is to be got attested by a Gazetted officer when the original is certain to be verified at a later stage be it be for a job or for appearing an exam, not to mention the difficulties in getting a document attested. Often we have to wait long before a Gazetted officer to get it attested. It's always a time consuming procedure. The Good news coming is that Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions recently addressed all Govt. Departments to review the existing requirements of attested copy or affidavit in various application forms in a phased manner and wherever possible make provision for self-certification of documents, after obtaining the approval of the competent authority. That means we can self-certify in Xerox copies of our certificates and can apply. Original needs to be produced at the required time.

No.K-11022/67/2012-AR

Government of India

Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions

Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances

Sardar Patel Bhavan, Sansad Marg,

New Delhi-110001. Dated the 10th May, 2013

OFFICE MEMORANDUM

Subject: Self-certification

The Second Administrative Reforms Commission in its 12th Report titled "Citizen Centric Administration - The Heart of Governance", has recommended, adoption of self-certification provision for simplifying procedures. (www:darpg.gov.in)

2. Taking a cue from this some Ministries/State Governments have adopted the provision of self-certification of documents like marksheet, birth certificate etc. by the applicants/stakeholders instead of asking for an attested copy of the documents by a Gazetted Officer or filing of affidavits. Under the self attestation method, the original documents are required,to be produced at the final stage.

3. You will appreciate that the above method is citizen friendly and obtaining either an attested copy or affidavit not only cost money but also involves wastage of timeof the citizens and the Government officials.

3. It is requested to kindly review the existing requirements of attested copy or affidavit in various application forms in a phased manner and wherever possible make provision for self-certification of documents, after obtaining the approval of the competent authority.

Sd/-

(Sanjay Kothari)

Secretary to the Government of India

Read More