The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre has given a nod to the extension of 7th Pay Commision benefits to teachers and academic staff of government and state-aided technical institutions in the country.
The move will directly benefit 29,264 teachers and other academic staff of technical institutes. Besides, nearly 3.5 lakh teachers of the private technical institutes, private colleges under the purview of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) will also benefit from the new directive, PTI reported.
Although the Union Ministry of Human Resources and Development (HRD) has said that the decision will help attract and retain the qualitatively better faculty in the technical institutes in the country, the payment of increased salaries and allowances to the teachers will cost the central government Rs 1,241.78 crore annually.
The teachers and academic staff will avail the benefits of the 7th Pay Commision from 2016 when the recommendations were supposed to be benefitted.
For this, the Centre has also decided to pay 50 per cent of the expenditures incurred by the technical institutes for the payment of arrears to its staff from 2016, under the 7th Pay Commision, Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said.
The 7th Pay Commision entitles a central government employee to a 23.55 per cent increase in his/her salary and other allowances. As per the AICTE guidelines, the current pay scale of the teachers in the technical institutions exists in two pay bands vis-a-vis their designations which is Rs 15,600-39,100 and Rs 37,400-67,000.
Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the Modi government has announced a string of welfare schemes and other measures for its employees and ex-public servants.
The government is also planning to modify the pension scheme which is likely to be announced next week, according to Zee News.
The new pension scheme will not only entail the measures to increase the monthly payments to former government employees but also entitle them to tax exemptions.
