JOIN USBudget not clear on pay panel allocation
Amid lack of clarity on Budget allocation towards implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, the government on Wednesday said it is difficult to quantify the monetary requirement for 2016-17 until the committee of secretaries submit their report.
Jaitley in his Budget speech on Monday had merely said that necessary interim provisions for the 7th Pay Commission have been made without giving a number. But the fine print suggests that in 2016-2017, the government’s salary and pension bill is only Rs 40,000 crore more than last year’s Rs 1.85 lakh crore.
The 7th CPC, which submitted its report in November last year, had said that the total financial impact due to the hike in pay and allowances of central government employees will be Rs 1,02,100 crore every year. Of this, Rs 73,650 crore will be borne by the General Budget in the first year.
“We cannot really quantify how much we require in 2016-17. Because the Committee of Secretaries have to first give its recommendations, then the government will take a decision and only then we will know what is the requirement in FY17,” Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikant Das said.
“We have the Pay Commission recommendations with us, we have analysed the likely requirement and it has been built into the Budget of various ministries. Some suitable interim provisions have been made,” he said without elaborating. “Hence the expenditure and revenue numbers are credible.”
Das said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech stated that interim provisions have been made. “And these provisions are there in the Demands for Grants for individual departments and ministries. It is built into and subsumed into those allocations."
Earlier this year, the government had set up Empowered Committee of Secretaries that will function as a screening committee to process the recommendations with regard to all relevant factors in the 7th CPC in an expeditious detailed and holistic fashion.