Wait ends, festival begins

REVISION OF PAY, PENSION & ALLOWANCES IS A SUB-OPTIMAL EXERCISE; ENHANCING STATE CAPACITY IS CRITICAL

- CKG NAIR

THE GOVERNMENT OF India set up the Eighth Central Pay Commission (CPC) on October 28, ending a rather long wait. Central government employees and pensioners, numbering about 11 million, can now take a deep breath and smile.

Being a beneficiary of four CPCs while in service, 1am privy to the collective happiness of serving employees. Their festivities would build up starting from the appointment of the commission. Various service and pensioner associations and their federations would elaborately prepare and submit memoranda, fervently demanding several benefits. They would also seek in-person meetings with the full commission,and its chair/members individually, to drive home how and why each group’s demands are the most genuine and must be recommended to serve the nation better and for its larger benefit. There would be longer lunch breaks and various groups would assemble on the premises of the many bhavans, discussing only pay commission related matters. Another round of the employees’ and pensioners’ decennial festival has begun and would continue till the recommendations are implemented once they are accepted by the government in due course.