Salary bill to touch whopping Rs 15,000 cr
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, July 9: The Government would be shelling out a whopping Rs 2400 crore for over 4.5 lakh Government employees during current financial year of 2012-13 for making payment of second installment of Sixth Pay Commission in their GPF account and two installments of Dearness Allowance.
The salary bill of the Government employees was about to touch 15,000 crore during the current financial year, the official estimates by the Planning Department revealed.
Official sources told the Excelsior that the Government has decided to release Rs 900 crore for payment of second installment of Sixth Pay Commission arrears to over 4.5 lakh Government employees, which would be included in GPF account (of the employees).
“Full amount for release of second installment of Sixth Pay Commission is being released. A part of the amount has already been released under which the employees of Civil Secretariat and other Departments have been paid arrears on account of Pay Commission. The entire amount would be released shortly and all 4.5 lakh employees, who have been granted benefits of Sixth Pay Commission, would get the second installment’’, sources said.
The amount on account of release of second installment would cost Rs 900 crore to the Government during current financial year.
The Government had last year decided to pay arrears of Sixth Pay Commission to its employees in five equal installments in five years period. Every year, the employees would be getting 20 per cent of the total arrears. First installment of the arrears, which had cost the Government about Rs 820 crore, had been released last year. This year’s installment was costing the Government about Rs 900 crore while next financial year, the installment would cost around Rs 1000 crore.
The Government would incur a total amount of over Rs 4300 crore in paying Sixth Pay Commission arrears to its employees in five equal installments of 20 per cent each.
In the month of April, the Government had released 7 per cent DA in favour of its employees that cost the Government nearly Rs 700 crore.
The amount was released from the budgetary provision.
Sources said the Government would have to incur another Rs 800 crore during current financial year for making payment of another installment of DA, which has become due from July 1 this year. Though the Central Government was yet to make announcement of the DA, sources said, it was not expected to be less than seven per cent keeping in view the high inflation the country was facing.
Sources said the Government has kept the provision of Rs 2400 crore for releasing full second installment of Sixth Pay Commission for the current year and two installments of DA.
However, the worrying factor for the Government was that salary bill of its over 4.5 lakh Government employees was expected to touch Rs 15,000 crore by the end of this financial year as compared to Rs 13,500 crore in the last fiscal of 2012-12.
Sources said the Government was finding it difficult to meet such a huge wage bill, which had gone up suddenly in 2009-2010 after the State implemented Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.
Sources added that the Government worked on various ways and means to reduce salary bill but could find none in the absence of private sector, which could generate job opportunities and deviate the youth from running for the Government jobs only.
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