8th Pay Commission: Fitment Factor, Minimum Wage To Feature In Common Memorandum, NC-JCM To Form Panel
The staff side of NC-JCM will form a drafting committee, which will prepare the common memorandum in June. The announcement comes ahead of the formation of 8th Pay Commission.
Ahead of the formation of 8th Pay Commission, the National Council-Joint Consultative Machinery—an official body representing central government employees and pensioners—will come up with a "common memorandum", according to a press release issued on Thursday.
This common memorandum will include their demand and inputs related to fitment factor, minimum wage, pay scales, allowances, advances promotion policy and pensionary benefits, the NC-JCM said.
The memorandum will also include inputs from the employee forum on the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme, which is the Centre's financial upgradation for its employees based on their years of service.
The memorandum will be prepared by a drafting committee, which will be headed by Shiv Gopal Mishra, the secretary general of the staff side of NC-JCM.
There will be 13 members part of the committee, which will meet in June to prepare the memorandum, the release added.
The members of the committee will be nominated by various recognised employee unions, including the All India Railwaymen's Federation, the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen, and the All India Defence Employees Federation.
The decision to form the committee was taken at the meeting convened by the staff side of NC-JCM in New Delhi, in the presence of Mishra, who is also the AIRF general secretary; and M Raghavaiah, the NFIR general secretary.
The development comes ahead of the official setup of the 8th Pay Commission. The panel's formation received nod from the Union Cabinet in January, and its chairman and members are expected to be announced in the period to come.
Notably, the pay commissions are formed once in a decade for the revision of salaries and allowances of government employees, and pensions of retirees. The last pay panel, the 7th Pay Commission, was formed in 2014 and its report was implemented from January 2016.
Fitment Factor, Pay Bands In Focus
Fitment factor, or the multiplication unit used for salary revision, is expected to be keenly deliberated upon after the formation of 8th Pay Commission.
NC-JCM staff side leaders who spoke to NDTV Profit earlier suggested that they would urge the commission to recommend at least the same fitment factor of 2.57 which the 7th Pay Commission had recommended, if not higher.
The 2.57-fitment factor under the 7th Pay Commission had increased the minimum salary from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000.
The NC-JCM members, in February, told NDTV Profit that the employee forum would be pushing for a "uniform fitment factor" across all pay bands.
A uniform fitment factor would mean that the multiplying factor used for salary revision will be the same for all employees, irrespective of the pay bands under which they are bracketed.
Under the 7th Pay Commission, 2.57 was used as the fitment factor for revision of salaries of employees bracketed under Pay Band 1. However, the panel had used an index of rationalisation to increase the fitment factor to 2.62 for Pay Band 2, followed by 2.67 for Pay Band 3, and 2.72 for higher pay grades under Pay Band 4.
For the revision of salaries at the apex level, the 7th Pay Commission had recommended a fitment factor of 2.81, after factoring in the index of rationalisation.
