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Bihar cabinet okays 14-15% increase in govt employees’ salary, pension
The salary hike, in accordance with the pay fitment committee’s report on the Centre’s Seventh Pay Commission, will benefit about 3.65 lakh employees and six lakh pensioners.Contractual teachers, who number around 3.60 lakh, will also get a similar increase in their salary,
The Bihar cabinet on Tuesday approved 14-15% salary hike to its staff and pensioners in accordance with the pay fitment committee’s report on the Centre’s Seventh Pay Commission.
Although the revised salary structure will be effective from January 2016, financial benefits will be doled out to government staff and pensioners from April 2017.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar had earlier announced that financial benefits would be given to employees from January 2017 and a budgetary provision for it was also made in the last fiscal.
Briefing reporters on the cabinet decisions, principal secretary, finance, Ravi Mital, said the salary of the government staff would go up by 14-15%, which would be 2.57 times of their existing basic and grade pay.
READ| Bihar government employees’ pay revision report by May 15: Kang
“Allowances such as house rent, medical, travel, conveyance etc. will be finalised later by the fitment committee in the next couple of months,” he said.
“The salary hike will benefit about 3.65 lakh employees and six lakh pensioners. The state exchequer will incur an additional annual expense of Rs 5,000 crore on account of increase in the salary and pension,” said Mital, adding that the fitment committee had been given a two-month extension to finalise allowances of staff.
Contractual teachers, who number around 3.60 lakh, will also get a similar increase in their salary, said principal secretary, education, R K Mahajan, adding that it would incur an additional cost of Rs 1500 crore on the state exchequer.
The fitment committee, headed by former Bihar chief secretary G S Kang, which submitted its report to the CM on Monday, has done away with the practice of pay band and grade pay and instead recommended as many as 14 pay metrics (levels) to determine the increase of salary to all its employees and officials, ranging from class 4 to class 1. The maximum level of pay has been fixed at Rs 2,18,200 while the minimum will be Rs 18,000 as per the revised structure.
