7th Pay Commission: Enhanced incentives proposed for Central govt staff acquiring higher qualification

The 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) may have recommended abolition of 51 allowances, and subsuming 37 others after examining 196 allowances. The final decision however rests with the Centre. While this may cause concern among Central government employees, there are some surprises in store for them.

CPC has not only accepted the demand for retaining some of the allowances, but has also enhanced the amount in its recommendations.

For instance, incentives paid to Central government employees for acquiring higher qualifications. The CPC has proposed a steep hike to staff from the amount currently payable — ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000, subject to caveats and existing norms governing such payments.

"The Commission appreciates the need to encourage acquiring of higher qualifications. At the same time, it is important that the knowledge so acquired is directly relevant to the scope of the employee's occupation," it said in its voluminous report submitted to the Indian government on November 19, 2015.

However, the CPC refused to bring the incentives on par with those payable to defence personnel, saying it was not feasible "in view of the different service conditions, mode of recruitment and other factors."

Pay upgrade proposed for Russian translators

Russia was the flavour of the week gone by, with India signing a slew of defence deals during the recent BRICS summit held in Goa last week. But Russian translators were of the view that they were not being paid adequately despite being assigned responsibilities similar to those engaged in translation of other languages.

"The cadre of Russian translators in Integrated Headquarters of MOD (Navy) has contended that they have the same entry level qualification and nature of duties as translators of other languages in the same office, but are placed in a lower pay scale," the CPC said, analysing their grievances.

Studying the job profiles of Russian translators and those of their Chinese, Sinhalese and Pushto counterparts, the pay panel came to the view that they deserved an upgrade in their pay band.

"The Commission finds merit in their demand for upgrade and accordingly recommends that Russian Translation Officers should be upgraded from the existing GP 4600 to GP 5400 (PB-3). Similarly, Russian Senior Translation officers should be upgraded from existing GP 5400 (PB-3) to GP 6600 and Russian Editors from existing GP 6600 to GP 7600," the Commission recommended.