Following Lt Cols, govt approves higher pay for Lt Gens - Will be placed into Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) Plus scales.

Three days after implementing higher pay for Lt Cols, the government on Friday night approved of higher wages for lieutenant generals under the Sixth Pay Commission putting them at par with director generals of police, a key demand of the armed forces.

The defence ministry conveyed the government's decision to the Armed Forces headquarters in a letter which comes nearly seven months after the union cabinet approved the Sixth Pay Commission implementation in August last year, sources in the services' headquarters told PTI here.

Nearly 50 three-star officers, who are Lt Gens in the Army, Air Marshals in the IAF and Vice Admirals in the Navy, would benefit from the government move to place them in the Higher Administrative Grade (HAG) Plus scales.

About 33 per cent of the total number of Lt Gen-rank officers would be receiving the new pay scales at par with the DGPs of state police and central paramilitary forces.

There are approximately about 150 Lt Gen-rank officers in the three services. Among them, the Army, Navy and Air Force Commanders, who are chiefs of the Service's Commands, and vice chiefs of the respective forces are already in a special category of pay scales equivalent to secretaries in the civilian services. The HAG Plus scales would be for Lt Gens who are not Commanders or Vice Chiefs.

"The armed forces are extremely happy with the government's decision to accord the HAG Plus pay scales to Lt Gens. With this, the government has restored the three-star rank officers' their status. This will surely help in resolving the seniority issue in areas where officers from the armed forces and the civilian services work jointly," a senior armed forces officer said.

By accepting this demand, the government has resolved three of the four "core issues" raised by the armed forces with Defence Minister A.K. Antony and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon after the government approved the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations last year.

Other issues already solved to the satisfaction of the Services included according Pay Band-4 scales to 15,000-odd Lieutenant Colonel-rank officers, who form the backbone of the armed forces' fighting units and restoring 70 per cent weightage in pensionary benefits for the over a million-strong jawans.

While the government has already notified the amended pay order in the case of Lt Cols, the notifications for the Lt Gens and the jawans are yet to come, sources said.

Source : India Today.

Good News for Tripura : Pay Hike Notified.

Click here for the Pay Revision w.e.f. 01.10.2018
The Tripura Govt. today notified the pay hike for employees and pensioners. The enhancement will be effected with effect from 01.01.2006, but the arrear from 01.01.2006 to 31.03.2009 will be credited in GPF. Hence there is no scope for any cash payment now. The amount such credited may be withdrawn from April 2010. The employees will get their enhanced salary of April in coming month.

Those who have retired before 31st Dec 2008, will not be eligible for any arrear. Persons retired between 01.01.2009 and 30.04.2009 will get there arrear in cash.

Under the new ACP scheme, employees will get three financial upgradation after 10, 17 and 25 years of service. Annual increment will be 2.5%.

Notification of ROP 2009 for Tripura Govt. Employees.

Notification of Pension Rules 2009 for Tripura Govt. Pensioners.

One Rank-One Pension : Govt. sets up panel

With a large number of ex-servicemen vowing to vote for BJP in the Lok Sabha polls, the UPA government on Monday set up a high-level committee under Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar to consider their 'One Rank-One Pension' (OROP) demand and reduce the gap in pensionary benefits of the 1.5-million-strong armed forces.

The Defence Ministry also set up another committee under Secretary (defence finance) Indu Liberhan to sort out anomalies in the implementation of orders relating to armed forces pensioners.

"The government has set up a high-level committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary to reduce the gap in pensionary benefits to jawans and officers, and bring it as close to 'one rank-one pension' as possible," a source said here.

The other members of the high-level committee would be the Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, Secretary Personnel Rahul Sarin, Secretary Expenditure Sushma Nath and Secretary Ex-Servicemen Welfare S M Acharya, sources said.

The ex-servicemen organisations have been pressing for the long-pending demand for OROP and they did so during the Sixth Pay Commission, too. However, the Defence Ministry has held to its view that it would be difficult for it to accept this demand.

Source : The Hindu.

MASSIVE HUNGER STRIKE & WALK-OUT BY BSNL WORKERS

Hundreds of BSNL Workers sat on Hunger Strike in front of Bharat Sanchar Bhawan, Corporate Office of BSNL, protesting against the very meager amount of Interim Relief granted and also demanding Wage Revision, which is due from 01-01-2007. The ITS officers who are on deputation to BSNL and the other executives have already been granted wage revision and arrears also paid w.e.f. 01-01-2006 and 01-01-2007 respectively. But so far the two and half lakh non-executive employees are deprived of the Wage Revision. The management is not prepared to grant Wage Revision in the same ratio and firmament as given to top executives.

The Hunger Strike at Corporate Office was inaugurated by V.A.N. Namboodiri, Convenor, United Forum, It was addressed by S/Shri. K.K.N. Kutty, Secretary General of Confederation, P.Abhimanyu, Dy.General Secretay,BSNLEU, Suresh Kumar, General Secretary, BSNLMS (BTEF), N.D.Ram (President, SEWA BSNL).Hari Singh(General Secretary, BTU), G.L. Jogi ( Secretary General,SNEA), Prahlad Rai (General Secretary,AIBSNLEA) and other leaders.

More than two lakh workers in BSNL walked out from duty in all other places and demonstrated. At Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow and other major centres, thousands walked out from duty and organized massive demonstrations.

The United Forum of BSNL Unions has already called for two days strike on 19^th & 20^th may 2009 demanding early Wage Revision.

Source : Press Statement of United Forum of BSNL Unions.

Punjab Pay Commission will be implemented entirely : Deputy Chief Minister.

Setting aside all apprehensions and speculations on the implementation of 5th th pay panel the recommendations, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal said here on Saturday that the cabinet has already decided to implement it in its entirety.

Also, he assured the employees that any recommendation detrimental to the employees' interests would automatically be dropped in consultation with the employees' organisations.

Meanwhile, Badal urged the employees not to be misled by poll eve propaganda of the Congress which hitherto has remained anti-employees, especially during the tenure of former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh who freezed the recruitment which not only increased the work load on an average employee but the government work too suffered immensely.

Reminding the employees that invariably it was the Akali government that implemented the recommendations of all the pay panels and that too to the satisfaction of the employees, Badal said the present government would implement it too. On the other hand, the Congress has only played with employees sentiments and exploited them for their petty electoral gains and offered them lip sympathy and too only occasionally.

The first pay panel was set up by the first non-Congress government led by Shiromani Akali Dal(SAD) under the chief ministership of late Gurnam Singh in 1967 and its recommendations too were implemented by the Akali government a year later.

Second pay commission too was set up under Parkash Singh Badal's second term in 1977 and its recommendations were notified nearly two yeas later in 1979, again under his government.

The third pay panel was constituted by SAD government led by Surjit Singh barnbala in 1986 but subsequently, his government was dismissed by the Centre and president rule was imposed.

However, the 4th pay panel report was submitted only five months after the SAD-BJP government came to power in February 1997 and it was implemented within six months after processing it in January next year.

Now, the story of the 5th pay panel is known to everybody, It was set up the Congress towards its fag end on December 19, 2006 , just few days before the implementation of the code of conduct by Amarinder Singh moribund government leaving the task of its implementation to successor SAD-BJP government

And despite the Election Commission of India had denied pay panel to submit tis report when the code of conduct was in operation , SAD_BJP government l pressed for it, even at the risk of annoying ECI and all this to just to ensure that the employees get their due at earliest.

[With Inputs from PunjabNewsline.com.]