With eye on the next state assembly polls, slated an year after, BJP government in Himachal Pradesh has gone for a hefty hike in the pay scales of employees –approximately 2 lakh, apart from 1.90 lakh pensioners.
The new pay scales will be applicable in the state from January 1.
The employees would get salary of January, 2022 to be paid the next month, in a revised pay scale.
This would put an additional burden of about Rs. 4000 crore annually on the state exchequer, said a senior government official after the meeting of the state cabinet.
When asked about exact hike ,which each employee will be getting, the officials said it would be between 15 to 20 percent but if seen in the context of 21 percent Interim Relief (IR) already given to every category of the employee, the hike will exceed 25 percent –which may be the highest in the recent times .
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“Around Rs 5000 crore as IR has been provided to the employees as part of the arrears” he said
The government employees have been building-up pressures on the government to implement recommendations of the sixth pay commission, which has already been announced by the Punjab government. Punjab is also going to be poll soon and state government has taken a lead to announce various sops for the employees and other sections.
Himachal Pradesh, which has been part of the erstwhile Punjab, still follows the payscales and other service conditions of the state.
Since 1990 -91 when the BJP government led by Shanta Kumar had invoked the 'no work ,no pay’ policy , the state has witnessed major employees agitations .
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Because of their sheer strength in the government, the employees lobby had remained as biggest vote bank in Himachal Pradesh so much so that they could even overturn the elected governments.
The BJP too had paid a huge cost for enforcing 'no work, no pay’ policy but the biggest advantage at its side as it ended the inference of the employees leaders in the government’s policy decisions .
Yet, despite this no government in the state can afford to annoy the government employees, daily wagers and also the contractual staff. The new lobby having merged is ‘outsourced’ employees, who also want their absorption in the regular government jobs.
The period of contractual employees which earlier used to be eight years for their regularisation and later brought down to five years and three years has recently been cut down to two years. The contractual employees will also get revised payscales .
In Himachal Pradesh, there is no household which does’nt have one or two members serving the state government. Thus, been a vote bank in the every state assembly election.
How can Jai Ram Thakur, who seeks fresh mandate in 2022, can ignore the sentiments of the five lakh employees and pensioners ?
Currently, the Chief Minister is facing disenchantment of nearly 5700 police constables who have also been asking for equal wages (higher payband) within two years as against those recruited before 2015. The constables have taken it to social media to voice their anger and their families held a protest before BJP national President J P Nadda, who was at Bilaspur recently.
