HISTORY OF PAY COMMISSIONS IN INDIA

HISTORY OF PAY COMMISSIONS IN INDIA

7th Pay Commission News – Details of Earlier Pay Commissions

Since India’s Independence, seven pay commissions have been set up on a regular basis to review and make recommendations on the work and pay structure of all civil and military divisions of the Government of India.

First Pay Commission

The first pay commission was constituted in May 1946, and had submitted its report in a year. and the importance is on the report. chairman was Srinivasa Varadachariar wef The first pay commission was based upon the idea of “living wages” to the employees, this idea was taken from the Islington Commission and the commission observed that “the test formulated by the Islington Commission is only to be liberally interpreted to suit the conditions of the present day and to be qualified by the condition that in no case should be a man’s pay be less than a living wage.” The commission emphasised on the idea of the living wages and stated that the government which is going to introduce the minimum wages legislation for the workers of the private industry should also follow the same principle for its own employees. The commission basically recommended that the lowest rung employee should at least get minimum wages.

Second Pay Commission

The second pay commission was set up in August 1957, 10 years after independence and it gave its report after two years. The recommendations of the second pay commission had a financial impact of Rs 396 million. The chairman of the second pay commission was Jaganath Das.The second pay commission reiterated the principle on which the salaries have to be determined. It stated that the pay structure and the working conditions of the government employee should be crafted in a way so as to ensure efficient functioning of the system by recruiting persons with a minimum qualification.

Third Pay Commission

The third pay commission set up in April 1970 gave its report in March 1973 i.e. it took almost 3 years to submit the report, and created proposals that cost the government Rs. 1.44 billion. The chairman was Raghubir Dayal. The third pay commission added three very important concepts of inclusiveness, comprehensibility, and adequacy for pay structure to be sound in nature.The third pay commission went beyond the idea of minimum subsistence that was adopted by the first pay commission.the commission report say that the true test which the government should adopt is to know weather the services are attractive and it retains the people it needs and if these persons are satisfied by that they are getting paid.

Fourth Pay Commission

Constituted in June 1983, its report was given in three phases within four years and the financial burden to the government was Rs.12.82 billion. This commission has been set up on dated 18.3.1987, Gazette of India (Extra ordinary) Notification No 91 dated 18.3.1987, The chairman of fourth pay commission was P N Singhal.

Fifth Pay Commission

The Fifth Pay Commission was set up in 1994 at a cost of Rs. 17,000 crore. The chairman of fifth pay commission was Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian.

Financial Impact of Fifth pay commission

With the implementation of the Fifth Pay commission a huge burden was taken up by the central government. It declared hike in salary of about 3.3 million central government employees. Further, it also insisted on pay revision at the state government level. The Fifth pay commission disturbed the financial situation of both the Central and the State Governments and led to a hue and cry after its implementation. The Central government’s wage bill before the implementation of the commission’s recommendations was 218.85 billion in 1996-1997 which also included pension dues and by 1999 it shoot up by about 99% and the burden on the exchequer was about to Rs 435.68 billion in 1999-2000.With regard’s to the state government the bill went up by 74%. The state governments which paid about Rs 515.48 billion in 1997 as salaries, had to pay Rs 898.13 billion in 1999 as salaries. This clearly indicates the burden on the state and the central government. Many economists say that about 90% of the revenue of the state went in as salaries. 13 states of India were not in a position to pay salaries to its employees due to the hike and hence the central government’s help was sought

Other recommendations of the Fifth pay commission

One of its recommendations was to slash government work force by about 30%. It also recommended to reduce the number of pay scale from 51 to 34 and to not recruit to about 3,50,000 vacant position in the government. None of these recommendations were implemented.

Criticisms of World Bank on fifth pay commission

The World Bank criticized the Fifth Pay commission, stating that the Fifth Pay Commission as the ‘single largest adverse shock’ to the public finance of the nation. It also said that the number of employees of the government was ‘not unduly’ large, but there was a ‘pronounced imbalance’ in the skills. It noted that about 93% of the employees were of 3rd or 4th grade.

Sixth Pay Commission

Main article: Sixth Central Pay Commission

In July 2006, the Cabinet approved setting up of the sixth pay commission. This commission has been set up under Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a timeframe of 18 months. The cost of hikes in salaries is anticipated to be about Rs. 20,000 crore for a total of 5.5 million government employees as per media speculation on the 6th Pay Commission, the report of which is expected to be handed over in late March/early April 2008. The employees had threatened to go on a nationwide strike if the government failed to hike their salaries. Reasons for the demand of hikes include rising inflation and rising pay in the private sector due to the forces of Globalization. The Class 1 officers in India are grossly underpaid with an IAS officer with 25 years of work experience earning just Rs.55,000 as his take home pay. Pay arrears are due from January 2006 till September 2008. Almost all the Government employees received 40% of the pay arrears in 2008 and balance 60% arrears (as promised by Government) has also been credited in Government employees account in 2009. The Sixth Pay Commission mainly focused on removing ambiguity in respect of various pay scales and mainly focused on reducing number of pay scales and bring the idea of pay bands. It recommended for removal of Group-D cadre.

Seventh Pay Commission[edit]

The Government of India has initiated the process to constitute the 7th Central Pay Commission along with finalization of its Terms of Reference, the composition and the possible timeframe for submission of its Report.[4] On September 25, 2013 the finance minister P Chidambaram announced that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has approved the constitution of the 7th Pay Commission. Its recommendations are likely to be implemented with effect from January 1, 2016. Justice A.K Mathur will be heading the Seventh Pay commission, announcement of which was done on 4th of February 2014. [5]

Name	Designation	Role in Commission
Justice Ashok Kumar Mathur	Retired Judge of the Supreme Court and Retired Chairman, Armed Forces Tribunal	Chairman
Vivek Rae	Secretary, Petroleum & Natural Gas	Member (Full Time)
Dr. Rathin Roy	Director, NIPFP	Member (Part Time)
Meena Agarwal	OSD, Department of Expenditure,Ministry of Finance	Secretary