Sixth Pay Commission - all updates from centre,state

Punjab Govt retirement age 58 to 60 Cabinet Decision today

2010-01-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

If the recommendations of the Sukhbir-Kalia report on resource mobilisation are accepted by the Cabinet on Friday, the Punjab government will be able to save an immediate expenditure of around Rs 2,000 crore.
The two-member committee, comprising Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia, had recommended increasing the retirement age of government employees from 58 to 60 years. The retirement age for employees of Central government, Class IV employees and university teachers in the state, is already 60. The move will benefit around 2.4 lakh employees in the state. There are another 1.3 lakh employees of boards, corporations, municipalities, improvement trusts and zila parishads. The increase in age limit for their retirement will depend on the respective bodies. The Sixth Pay Commission had also recommended increasing of retirement age and the issue also found place in the SAD-BJP manifesto during the previous Assembly elections

Source : Indian Express

Revised grade for Allahabad University class IV employees

2009-12-27T07:42:00.000-08:00

The class-IV employees of the Allahabad University can welcome the New Year with extra joy. Reason: The varsity has given them a higher pay grade. These employees have been given a pay grade of Rs 1800 -- an increase of Rs 500 over the existing grade -- in their salaries payable for January 2010.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) had instructed all the central universities a pay grade of Rs 1800 to class IV employees as per the recommendation of the sixth pay commission. UGC had asked the universities that this grade be paid to all high school pass employees.

Further, class IV employees who were not high school pass would be imparted training by the universities and thereafter given the higher pay grade.

However, despite the assurance when the employees found that their grade was not changed they resented. Later, after initiating talks with AU registrar Prof J N Mishra, the issue was settled and now employees have been given the revised grade.

Similarly, daily wagers of AU too were agitated over their lower salaries which stand at Rs 130 per day. They have been demanding that their payment be raised as the new GO of the state government recommends payment of Rs 192 per day in place of Rs 130. However, the varsity has not accepted the demand of daily wagers and said that the issue would be taken up in February.

Source : Times of India

UP Roadways employees threaten strike

2009-12-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

The Roadways employees will proceed on a strike if the government does not agree to their demands. Till late Sunday evening, the representatives of the Roadways Employees' Association were in talks with the government. "It all depends on the success or failure of the talks," said sources in UPSRTC, when asked if the employees will proceed on the strike.

However, this is different from what the employees have to say in the matter. They have decided to proceed on a 24-hours token strike even if the talks help reach a consensus.

The basic demand of the employees is the implementation of the sixth pay commission. The employees want revised pay scales from January 1, 2006. The employees are negotiating their 17-point demands with the government.

Some of the other demands include, making due payments to few of the contractual workers and increasing the retirement age from 58 years to 60 years. The employees association has threatened to go on an indefinite strike after a week, if the government does not relent to their demands. The Roadways employees had threatened to go on strike in the past as well on a similar set of issues. However, this time all eyes are fixed on the outcome of the meeting

Source : Times of India

Uttarakhand State roadways employees withdraw strike call

2009-12-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

Uttarakhand state roadways employees today withdrew their call for indefinite strike after the government assured them to look into various demands including extending the benefits of sixth pay commission.

The employees decided not to go ahead with their proposed indefinite strike from today as the government has assured them in writing that benefits of sixth pay commission would be extended to them very soon, said Vijay Mamgain, General Secretary of Employees Federation.

Mamgain said the government has also agreed on the employees demand that the benefits of sixth pay commission would be implemented with retrospective effect from January 2006

Orissa Doctors threaten stir from Dec 18

2009-12-13T08:48:00.001-08:00

Feeling betrayed 13 months after Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s assurance on pay-band parity with other services and their demand for dynamic assured career progression (DACP), members of Orissa Medical Services Association (OMSA) today threatened an agitation from December 18.

After a State-level meeting of OMSA representatives here, they said that if the State Government fails to make any headway by 5 p.m on December 16, the doctors will be forced to take the agitational path. Even our family members would join us in a congregation near the Capital Hospital on that day, they announced.

Speaking to mediapersons, OMSA president Dr Madhusudan Mishra said the DACP is already being implemented in Central cadre and state medical cadres of Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat.

There would be no fresh submission of resignations to the Government as already 2,446 are with the administration and if the OMSA members are forced to go on stir, the situation could be well imagined, he said adding considering public inconvenience there would be enough time for the Government to do the re-thinking.

The DACP is a specific provision for doctors in the Sixth Pay Commission recommendation where the doctors can avail of a good career graph in time-bound manner. On the other hand, while there are nearly 80 posts in payband IV in Orissa Administrative Service cadre, for OMS with a strength of 4,258 it is a paltry 10 posts, he said.

Due to this anomaly, a doctor who has joined OMS cadre in junior class I grade, continues in the same level even after 25 years of service, alleged OMSA office-bearers.

The enhanced posts in the Payband IV would require nearly Rs 1.5 crore per annum, they added.

On an average 300 doctors are retiring in a year and in the last two years two batches consisting of nearly 1,000 doctors had retired.

However, with the prevailing situation the younger generation does not want to join the service. Even after joining many are leaving the workplace, they said adding if the situation continues like this, there would be serious problems in health-care delivery in rural areas.

According to the population size, there must be around 12,000 doctors in the State, but with only one-third serving, the pressure is increasing immensely, they said.

Salary raise for patna civil courts' staff

2009-11-29T02:33:00.000-08:00

Around 9,500 employees of the state's civil courts would get revised salaries in accordance with the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations.

It could not be immediately known from when the revised payments would be made.

The state cabinet on Thursday okayed a government decision in this regard which was taken in the light of the orders of the Supreme Court and Patna High Court.

The cabinet accorded its sanction to the construction of a Chemotherapy Day Care Unit for cancer treatment at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences at a cost of over Rs 4.14 crore.

The cabinet also sanctioned the creation of 16 additional teaching posts and 50 additional non-teaching posts in the Patna Dental College. The move is aimed at enabling the college to meet the parameters of Dental Council of India.

The cabinet also okayed the government's decision to construct a new museum of international standards on the Bailey Road to promote tourism. For the purpose, government quarters numbering two to seven on the western side of the Patna High Court would be demolished.

The space at the existing Patna Museum, which has 45,000 artifacts, is sufficient to ensure the display of only 2,700 of them. The new museum would facilitate public display of the remaining artifacts.

The cabinet also gave its go-ahead to the government to pay Rs 10,000 each to 37,760 girl students who secured first division in the last matric examination, conducted by the Bihar School Examination Board. The incentive scheme under the Mukhyamantri Balika Protsahan Yojana would entail an expenditure of Rs 37.7 crore.

On the other hand, the cabinet's nod to the payment of Rs 1,000 to the contract teachers of primary and middle/high schools, over and above their regular increment every third year, would involve an annual expenditure of Rs 170.2 crore.

In accordance with the announcement of the CM, the cabinet okayed payment of diesel subsidy to the farmers for three "patwan" or irrigation schedules at the rate of Rs 15 per litre for Rabi crops. This would also be payable to farmers in and around urban areas.

Besides, the cabinet approved the government's decision to pay additional support price to farmers at the rate of Rs 50 per quintal during procurement of paddy. The cabinet okayed release of Rs 35 crore from the government's contingency fund for the purpose.

Govt revises pay scales of govt pharmacists with effect from Jan, 2006

2009-11-29T02:30:00.000-08:00

The Union Ministry of Finance has decided to revise the pay scale of the government pharmacists with an upgradation in their grade, following recommendation from the Fast Track Committee assigned to look after the demands made on the Sixth Central Commission.

According to the recommendation of the committee, the entry grade of pharmacists in central government would remain at a grade pay of Rs 2800 in the pay band PB1 even as all the incumbents would be granted non functional upgradation in the next higher grade having grade pay of Rs 4200 in the pay band PB2, on completion of two years' service in the entry grade.

The pharmacist grade one and two will be merged and designated as pharmacist (non-functional grade). The designation will be granted to the entry level pharmacists on completion of two years of service, according to the official memorandum issued by the Department of Expenditure (Implementation Cell), Ministry of Finance.

The decision is to implement the new pay scale with effect from January 1, 2006, and all the pharmacists who are under service from the said date would soon get the arrears on this account.

The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), the statutory body regulating the pharmacy education and profession in India, applauded the move to upgrade the pharmacists to the pay band PB2. The PCI has extended demand to revise and upgrade the pay scale of government pharmacists with the Sixth Control Pay Commission. However, the PCI's request to eliminate entry grade post, which is the lowest in the pay scale, and to provide better grade for the freshly appointed pharmacists is not accepted by the committee.

“The upgradation of pharmacists after two years service to pay band PB2 is something more than our expectation. We are happy that the government has extended such a support. For our demand to remove the entry grade from the post of pharmacists, we will be submitting our representations to the government soon,” said Dr B Suresh, president, PCI. The council will submit the recommendation to the anomalies committee requesting action in the Sixth Pay Commission implementation itself, he added.

The pay scale for entry grade pharmacists were Rs 1500 to 2000 while the grade two pharmacist had a pay scale of Rs 5000 to 8000 as grade pay till now. The grade one pharmacist had a pay scale of Rs 5500 to 9000.

source :pharmabiz

Patna University to pay revised scales to employees

2009-11-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

The Patna University (PU) Syndicate on Friday decided to implement the payscales recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission for the Class III and IV staff of the university. PU would urge the state government to release necessary funds for implementing the revised scales.

The Syndicate, at its meeting held here under the chairmanship of vice-chancellor Shyam Lal, discussed the demand of non-teaching staff in detail and decided to end the discrimination between the payscales of the government staff and the university staff.

Approving a resolution presented by Syndic Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, the Syndicate urged the ex-officio members, the HRD principal secretary and director of higher education, to attend the meetings of the Syndicate and Senate as the HRD department has of late been taking keen interest in the routine activities of the university. Usually these officials do not attend the meetings of various statutory bodies of the university.

The meeting expressed grave concern over the inordinate delay in disposal of suspension cases of teachers. Even though several teachers of PU remain suspended for the past six months to one year, PU has failed to take any final decision in the matter. The Syndics demanded that PU must place a concrete decision on all such cases in the next meeting of the Syndicate. Patna University Teachers/ Association has also been demanding withdrawal of suspension of all teachers.

The Syndicate further authorized the VC to decide the issue of grant of lien to teachers considering the merit of the individual case. No fixed criterion can be framed for granting lien to a teacher, they observed.

The Syndicate decided to apprise the state government of the proposal put forward by the Vedanta Foundation regarding setting up an information technology centre in the university under joint collaboration. It also decided to cancel the contract given to a private contractor for his failure to complete the work in the stipulated period and making false charges against Patna College principal.

Gujarat University teachers ask state government to decide pay scale issue in two days

2009-11-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

The Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers Association that is agitating for over a month over the issue of their pay scales has decided to give an extension of two days to the government to meet their demands.
The association, unhappy with the revised general resolution (GR) of the state government about their pay scale, is protesting against the government failure to decide their pay structure as per the University Grants Commission (UGC) norms.
The teaching community reacted strongly when a GR passed by the state education department on October 6 specified the pay structure of the university and college teachers as per the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. The teachers’ federation started state-wide protest agitation and organised programmes like presenting ‘blood-sprinkled’ bouquets to officials and sending protest letters signed in blood to the Education Department.

The federation postponed their protests before the state education department released the revised GR on November 11. However, later, the federation described the revised GR a ‘deception’ in the name of UGC provisions.
Prof K S Shastri, the president of the federation, said, “The new GR is a deception as it is a copy of the old GR. Almost 80 per cent of the UGC provisions have been ignored in it. Moreover, there is no change in the provision of application of service rules of the state government.”
Following the new GR, the federation had decided to continue with the agitation programmes and gave a final deadline to the Education Department to make the necessary changes

Source : Indian Express

Railway Employees irked by pay panel anomalies

2009-11-20T06:54:00.000-08:00

While implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations by the Indian Railways may have brought good news for some, it has also
National Federation for Indian Railwaymen (NFIR) has demanded that these anomalies be taken care of at the earliest. NFIR national general secretary M Raghavaiah said the grade pay system had led to several anomalies in salaries.

Employees like assistant loco pilots, technical supervisors, technicians, supervisory staff, station masters, paramedical and ministerial staff have not been given grade pay in line with the kind of work they do. "This has led to a lot of discontent," said Raghavaiah who was in the city to address a team of railwaymen from Sri Lanka.

He also pointed out that another major issue plaguing the railways was that of vacancies in safety categories. "There are around 1.9 lakh vacancies and 90,000 are in the safety category," he said.

This was a grave matter. The number of posts should also be increased in proportion to the new infrastructure and trains added to the system, he added.

NFIR has also raised the issue of working conditions and long duty hours of railway employees. It has pointed out that level-crossing gatekeepers work for 12 hours a day without any facilities. As per norms, duty hours of railwaymen must be restricted to eight hours. Otherwise, they work under extreme stress and strain, said Raghavaiah.

Source : Times of India

Corporation of the City of Panaji staff to get salaries as per 6th Pay Commission

2009-11-17T09:23:00.000-08:00

The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) on Monday informed the high court of Bombay at Goa that it has decided to pay salaries to its employees as per the Sixth Pay Commission.

CCP's advocate Agnelo Diniz told the court that CCP officials have communicated to him that the employees would be paid their salaries as per the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations.

Following the statement, a division bench comprising Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice N A Britto disposed the petition filed by the Goa Municipal Employees Association challenging the corporation's decision not to implement Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations due to a financial crunch.

UGC payscale: Gujarat Teachers to intensify stir from Nov 18

2009-11-13T08:09:00.000-08:00

A day after the state government announced to implement the UGC pay scales as per the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, the agitating teachers, unsatisfied with the new Government Resolution held an emergency meeting on Thursday. At the meeting, the Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers Association decided to intensify its agitation programmes (currently on hold) from Nov 18.

Federation president Prof K S Shastri said: “Almost 80 percent of the UGC provisions have been ignored in the new GR. Various schemes for incentives, like Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) for teacher as well as the chapter for special increments have been totally ignored. Moreover, the negative provision of application of service rules of the state government, which has been strongly resented by all teachers, remains unchanged.”

According to the fresh GR, apart from increase in the salary slabs of university and college teachers, the nomenclature of the designation would also be changed and the teachers would be allowed to claim travel allowances along with other incentives.

Source : Indianexpress

Tamil Nadu TNEB staff & engineers, hefty pay hike announced

2009-11-11T10:28:00.000-08:00

After implementing the recommendations of Sixth pay commission for Government employees and teachers, the ruling DMK Government has shown
its largesse to yet another large section of working class- employees and officers of Tamil Nadu Electricity board (TNEB) with a 40% hike in wages and allowances.

The Government on Monday announced revision in pay and allowances ranging from Rs 1400 to Rs 19510 per month across various cadres in TNEB from Mazdoors to chief engineers. The revision will take effect from December 1, 2007 ( it is due from December 1, 2006) and a formal wage accord for four years will be signed with the unions soon.

The State Minister for Electricity board, Arcot N Veerasamy said the revision will benefit about 76,000 employees and officers, 84,000 pensioners and 10,000 contract workers. While the board will have to shell out Rs 1200 crore towards arrears payment, the revision will entail an annual additional expenditure of Rs 625 crore.

A revised work norm will also be implemented along with the revision in wages and allowances, the Minister said.
Despite the EB suffering a loss of Rs 7000 crore and struggling to cope with the power shortage, it has been forced to go in for a wage revision. It is expected to be bailed out by the State Government by stepping up the subsidy or providing other financial accommodation.

While there are 18 trade unions in TNEB, a majority of the workmen are represented by the unions affiliated to LPF, the DMK’s TU wing, CITU, AITUC and an independent federation.

Though the two left parties ( CPI and CPM) are in the opposition camp and fought the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with AIADMK, even the leftist unions are pleasantly surprised by the liberal wage revision in TNEB. More surprising is the good deal given to pensioners.

Sources in CITU said while the contract workers were expecting their daily wage to be fixed at Rs 250, it has been raised by Rs 50 to Rs 120 per day. The sources also wanted the Government to give a fair deal to about 3500 part time staff by extending them the salary being paid to noon meal staff. The EB had issued an order to this effect in 1997 but not implemented so far.

Political circles viewed the wage revision in TNEB in the context of the ruling DMK’s game plan to retain the vote bank of Government employees and the working class at the time of assembly election due in May 2011.

Source : Times of India

Patna HC orders pay hike for civil court staff

2009-11-05T11:08:00.000-08:00

Patna High Court on Tuesday directed the state government to enhance the salary structure of the employees of civil courts in the state and
make it commensurate with the one recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission for Central government employees.

A division Bench, comprising acting Chief Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Shyam Kishore Sharma, issued the directive on a representation of the Association of State Civil Court Employees, treating the same as a writ petition.

The court also directed the state government to start paying the hiked salary to the court employees within a month and apprise the court of the time it would take to pay the arrears.

The court employees pleaded that the state government employees and the employees of the Patna High Court were already getting enhanced salary.

Police restrained: The same Bench on Tuesday directed police not to take any action against Vikas Chandra alias Guddu Baba who has filed a PIL against alleged mismanagement of `goshalas'.

Guddu Baba submitted he feared action by the Pataliputra Colony police station on the basis of a complaint filed against him after he filed the PIL seeking application of the relevant laws to run the `goshalas' which were mismanaged and even grabbed in some cases.

Source : Times of India

College puts off exams as College teachers strike work in tamilnadu

2009-11-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

The annual examination of an autonomous city college, scheduled to begin on Monday, was postponed after teachers struck work demanding immediate implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

By evening, however, an amicable solution was reached and the teachers called off the strike.

Sources said over 900 students of Vivekananda Arts, Science and Commerce College, Mylapore, were scheduled to appear for various papers beginning on Monday. But they had to be postponed as the 87- strong teaching faculty refused to cooperate in conducting the examination due to the alleged delay in fixation of salaries of 18 lecturers on the basis of the Sixth Pay Commission report. The college has about 3,000 students.

A senior faculty of the college told Express that the Government Order 350 on implementation of the new pay scale had been passed in September. While 26 colleges in the city had promptly implemented the GO, their management was dillydallying on the issue, he said.

The teachers had not been paid for the last two months due to the inordinate delay in fixation of the new pay grade for the teaching staff who had been appointed around 2000, he alleged. “We wrote to the management asking them to expedite the process and sought a written assurance that our problem will be solved, but there was no response,” he said. “On October 20, we held out a warning that we will not cooperate in conducting the autonomous annual examinations if the issue was not resolved,” he added.

On Monday morning, the teachers came to the college hoping that the management would concede to their request. But as the impasse continued, they decided to strike work

Source : Expressbuzz

Latest News on Assam Pay Report

2009-11-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

The Sadou Assam Karmachari Parishad today decided to discuss the pay commission’s report with chief minister Tarun Gogoi to plug the gaps even while describing it as “unacceptable.”

The SAKP, which is the apex body of several state government employees’ unions, at its special central executive session held here also asked Dispur to release the “detailed and complete report” at the earliest so that the union could study the recommendations.

The four-hour session was presided over by parishad president Basav Kalita.

“Points like annual one per cent increment and another two per cent for those who perform well cannot be accepted. There must be uniformity and the one per cent must be increased to three per cent, on a par with central government employees,” said parishad secretary Nagen Das.

“We would press the government for an immediate sitting for finding out a fruitful solution,” Das added.

More than 300 members of the parishad participated in the session on Nagaon Government HS School campus.

The state government on Friday partially released the recommendations of the Sixth Assam Pay Commission which has fixed the minimum pay band at Rs 5,860 and the maximum at Rs 55,000.

“Our stress is equally on work culture. Our parishad is not with those who are corrupt and lack work ethics. I want to make it clear that if a member is punished for corruption, we would not stand in favour of the guilty. But at the same time we cannot accept the commission’s view that a section would get something specially for doing well,” Kalita told The Telegraph.

“Dispur should be sincere and serious as our demands are legitimate. We hope a fruitful sitting of our parishad leadership with the government might be able to plug the gaps,” said Bidhan Hazarika, a member of the parishad.

The commission has recommended five pay bands instead of the existing 30 payscales. It has also proposed annual increments to be paid at the rate of one per cent of the total pay and corresponding grade pay.

The highlight of the proposals was the introduction of a performance-based increment scheme wherein an assessing officer will assess an employee. He/she can earn up to additional two per cent increment over and above normal increment based on his/her performance. However, there will be no change in the existing system of dearness allowance.

Source : Telegraph

Gujarat Govt agrees to teachers' demands, asks to withdraw agitation

2009-10-31T05:23:00.000-07:00

Gujarat government on Friday agreed to grant college and university teachers, the pay scales determined by University Grants Commission (UGC), provided the teachers withdraw their agitation.

At least 15,000 teachers from all over the state were protesting against the state government's directive to revise pay scales of university and college teachers as per the Sixth Pay Commission. And, this was done without taking into consideration the recommendations of the Chaddha Committee appointed by UGC, which would increase their current salaries by 30 to 50 per cent.

The teachers have put their agitation on hold till November 5. This compromise was done after a high profile meeting of state education department officials and a delegation of the Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers Association (GFUCTA), and all other teachers' association of the universities, was done. The federation met state education minister Ramanlal Vora, minister of state for Home Amit Shah and commissioner for higher education Jayanti Ravi and other members of the secretariat.

"The state government has said that they have agreed to our demands and the sentiments of the teachers' community. This will be a great encouragement for teachers and a recovery from the set back that they had faced after the revision of the pay scale," said KS Shastri president of GFUCTA.

University education forum convenor Shashiranjan Yadav said, "We are glad that the government has heard our plea and understood why we were demanding the scale of UGC."

With the revision according to UGC pay scale, the middle order teachers who have put 14 to 16 years of service will see a salary increase by 50 per cent while junior level teachers also get a benefit of around 30 per cent over their present salary structure.

Source : Times of India

Orissa Govt to release arrears for retiring staffs

2009-10-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

Director Shankar has sought the assistance of Hollywood technicians to can the climax of Enthiran. The highlight will be the clash of the Rajinikanths – the robot showing its displeasure on the scientist.
Keeping in mind the importance of the sequence, Shankar is geared up to show the Superstar(s) in a way not seen earlier in any Indian film.

Vellore is the likely place for the climax, much of the shoot being in the sprawling campus of Vellore Institute of Technology.

With only two songs and the climax to be completed, Enthiran should keep its date with audiences worldwide on Tamil New Year’s day

Source: express buzz

PGI, Chandigarh doctors to raise pay issue with PM

2009-10-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit PGI on November 3 to attend convocation, doctors are getting ready to raise pay package issue with him. Blaming the PGI director as well as the ministry of health and family welfare for inaction, the faculty has threatened to escalate its protest and finally plan to boycott the PM’s visit, if not given an appointment.

The PGI Faculty Association has three main long-pending demands regarding the pay-scales given to assistant professor, promotional avenues and non-practising allowance given to doctors. It demanded that around 130 assistant professors of the hospital must be given pay-scales at band 4 instead of present band 3.

Mentioning that while other categories of government employees are getting the salary according to revised pay structure recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission, PGI faculty as well as AIIMS are stilling waiting for same. ‘‘In both premium institutes, it has been more than a year. Now our patience is wearing out,’’ said an executive member of the association.

Aditya Aggarwal, general secretary of the association, mentioned that faculty’s promotional avenues should be at least at par with those of the IITs as they perform no less work than the latter and even more in terms of clinical care.

The issue of abolishing ceiling on salary of professors has caused a lot of heart burn as at present a professor’s salary cannot exceed that of cabinet secretary, leading to loss of non-practising allowance (NPA) when former’s salary reaches the upper limit.

Virendra Singh, vice-president of the association, claimed, PGI administration and the director had failed in their duty to take up the issue at the Centre level despite repeated representation to them.

‘‘Even our voice went unheard by Ghulam Nabi Azad, the minister of health and family welfare, when he visited PGI in August.’’

Singh informed that the future course of action will be decided in the association’s general body meeting on Tuesday, but made it clear this time they could not be assuaged with mere promises.

Source : Times of India

Mizoram State To Implement 6th Pay Commission

2009-10-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

The chief minister of Mizoram told the state assembly that the government would implement the Sixth Pay Commission for its 90,000 employees.

Lal Thanhawla said that the cabinet's decision is being awaited and the government is keen to implement the 6th Pay Commission recommendation as soon as possible, a senior finance department official told newsmen.

Lal Thanhawla, who also holds the finance portfolio, told the house that while the government was ready to implement the recommendations for its regular employees, the welfare of the casual and contingent workers of the government was not overlooked and it was recommended that their wages be increased.

Source : Samaylive

Madras High Court staff yet to get benefits of 6th pay commission

2009-10-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

While the 12 lakh employees of the Tamil Nadu Government have already tasted the benefits of Sixth Pay Commission and are celebrating wage revision on par with central government employees, the staff of the Madras high court have not been so fortunate.

About 2,000 employees of the high court, ranging from office assistants to senior registry officials, are still waiting for the woefully understaffed Pay Cell' to manually frame the salary structure.

"It is nearly three months since the state government employees were given the bonanza. Post-revision, they have even got 5% dearness allowance hike. Not surprisingly, they had a gala Diwali this year. Pity us, we are yet to hear from our registry officials as to when we will get our arrears, enhanced salary and the DA hike benefits," said a HC employee.

Interestingly, the high court administration could not even ensure parity of status between the staff working at the principal seat here and those at the Madurai bench. "Our friends in the Madurai bench have already received their wage revision benefits, whereas we are still clueless," says a woman staffer, who adds, "it is rumoured that those in the office assistant cadre might get their dues soon."

Another senior official, who did not want to be quoted, said the process could have been expedited if only the HC administration had roped in the services of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) which has softwares to calculate salary figures. "They even offered to improvise the software to suit the requirements of this court," he said, adding that the administration chose the manual method which is proving to be a time-consuming exercise.

The specially-constituted Pay Cell, which originally had a skeletal staff strength, was allotted additional staff only after the issue was brought to the notice of a senior judge, said another staff member of the HC.

Noting that HC employees, especially women, had a long list of complaints regarding service conditions, abuse by senior registry officials and poor infrastructure, an employee said a signature campaign seeking an open discussion' with chief justice HL Gokhale would be launched this week.

Source : Times of India

J&K Govt ready to release pending salaries of SRTC

2009-10-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

Jammu and Kashmir Government today said it was ready to release the pending salaries of State Road Transport Corporation, provided they come forward with "positive attitude" and urged them to call off their strike.

"Government is serious about the difficulties and problems of SRTC employees, but they should come forward with positive attitude," Transport Secretary K B Jandial told Public undertaking committee of legislative assembly here.

He said that government has already assured the employees of the corporation that five months salary will be released and expressed hope that the employees will call off their strike immediately.

SRTC employees are on an indefinite strike over past nearly two months and have recently submitted their resignations en masse under voluntary retirement scheme as a protest demanding one-time settlement of their dues.

Source : PTI

Karnataka University Teachers retirement age 62

2009-10-21T01:26:00.000-07:00

The state government in compliance with the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission for university teachers has raised the superannuation age of university teachers, who are in the University Grants Commission (UGC) grade, from the existing 60 to 62 years.

In a government order — ‘ED37UNE-2009 C Bangalore’ — dated October 14, 2009, the state government has raised the retirement age of university teachers, who are drawing the UGC scale; from the existing 60 to 62 years with immediate effect. The government order will affect over 1,000 university teachers across the state, said minister for higher education Aravind Limbavali.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Limbavali said the Cabinet took the decision to raise the retirement age limit of university teachers on UGC scale by two years in compliance with the UGC pay panel committee headed by Prof. G.K. Chaddha. “We had earlier raised the retirement age of all government employees from 58 to 60 excluding university teachers. So this time we have decided to raise the age bar because many of the teachers in the university will be retiring shortly,” Mr Limbavali said.

“There’s a dearth of teachers in the university in the science and mathematics streams and we hope that with this we will be able to draw quality teachers to the profession and retain the existing ones. We will also shortly issue the order on hike of pay scale of university teachers. The Cabinet has already taken the decision but we couldn’t issue the government order because of the floods. We will shortly issue the GO, which would include the arrears from January 1, 2006 as per the Sixth Pay Commission order,” Mr Limbavali added.

He added that for the revision in salaries affecting 11,000 university teachers, the Centre will bear Rs 800 crore and the state government will contribute Rs 111 crore.

“This arrangement is only till 2010 after which the state will have to bear the entire cost,” he added.

The government order on increasing the superannuation age is exclusively for the university teachers, who have UGC qualification; those who have passed the National Entrance Test and have finished their Ph.D through course work and not for teachers in university-affiliated colleges. Their retirement age remains unaltered at 60,” said principal secretary, higher education, S. Srikanth

Source :deccan chronicle

UP corporations to get Sixth pay panel benefit

2009-10-18T10:07:00.000-07:00

In a Diwali bonanza, Uttar Pradesh government has decided to implement recommendations of the sixth pay commission for the employees of corporations and public enterprises in the state.

"Nearly 98,000 employees of enterprises and corporations will be benefitted by the decision approved by the state cabinet," official sources said here today.

An order to this effect was issued by Principal Secretary Public Enterprises Sunanda Prasad late last night, they said.

As per the order like state employees, corporations and public enterprises staff will get benefit of sixth pay commission with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.

However, the decision will be implemented with certain terms and conditions.

Staff of only those corporations and enterprises which are running into profit from the last three years and whose accounts have been audited by CAG will get the benefit.

Source : PTI

Saurashtra University (SU) non-teaching staff to get pay panel benefits

2009-10-16T04:46:00.000-07:00

While lecturers and professors of Saurashtra University (SU) continue to fight for pay hike, the university's non-teaching staff has reason
to rejoice.

It was announced on Tuesday that the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations would be implemented for them. "Soon, the non-teaching staff will start getting salary as per the recommendations. The process of pay fixation is underway," said a SU official.

However, in a negative development, the state government announced the abolition of 96 posts that had been lying vacant for more than three years. "Of 408 posts, 310 have been lying unoccupied for years. So, the government has decided to scrap the 98 posts," the official said.

The posts to be abolished include 17 assistant clerks, nine peons and five each of typists, security guards and senior assistant administrators

Source : Times of India

Diwali bonanza for UP retired teachers

2009-10-16T04:44:00.000-07:00

Here is something for the retired higher education teachers to cheer about in Diwali, even as their in-service counterparts continue to
sulk. The state higher education department on Thursday released government order which was pending for the past three months, revising pensions of retired teachers at par with the Sixth Pay Commission. The order will benefit over 10,000 retired teachers in UP.

Unlike in-service teachers whose salaries have been revised by the government from December 2008, the retired teachers will get revised pension with effect from January 2006, as recommended by University Grants Commission (UGC). Some new things have also be included in the revised pension order such as pension benefit to teachers who retire after completion of at least 10 years of the services, gratuity if retirement taken at the age of 60 years, pension also to the dependents of pensioner after death and facility of encashment of the pension.

Retired teachers have been divided into two categories -- superannuation before and after January 1, 2006 -- and two separate orders have been issued respectively. The pension will be at least 50% of the last drawn pay. While those completing 80 years of age will get 20% of basic pension extra, retired teachers crossing 85 years will get 30% extra, 90 years - 40% extra, 95 years - 50% extra and 100 years - 100% extra. While 20% of arrears between January 2006 to November 2008 will be paid in 2009-10, 40% in 2010-11 and remaining in 2011-12.

Earlier, a teacher used to be entitled for "full pension", ie 50% of the last drawn pay, after completing 33 years in service. Now the mandatory period has been reduced to 20 years. Further, teachers completing at least 10 years of service and retiring after January 1, 2006 will also be eligible for pension benefit, given in proportion to their service period. Teachers retiring after 2006 and have opted/would opt for superannuation at 60 years of age instead of 62 years, will get gratuity up to Rs 10 lakh. The same amount earlier was up to Rs 3.5 lakh.

The provision of family pension to dependents of a deceased retired teacher has also been expanded. Now the widow/widower of a retired teacher will get pension for life or till remarriage. A dependent son/daughter can avail the benefit till he/she gets an employment or 25 years of age, whichever comes first. In case, daughter is widow/unmarried/divorcee, she will get benefit till she gets employment or marriage/remarriage, whichever happens earlier. Dependent parents will also get pension benefit under some conditions and circumstances.

Another new element added to the revised scheme is that now a teacher opting for superannuation at 60 years of age can encash 40% of pension and those retiring at the age of 62 years can encash 20%. All the teachers associations and retired teachers associations have welcomed the order, although they said it should have been issued in much earlier. Lucknow University Retired Teachers Association, general secretary, RS Verma said that we were trying for it since long. "I am happy the order, though late, has come before Diwali," he said.

Moulindu Mishra, president, Lucknow University Associated College Teachers Association (LUACTA), also welcomed the move but said that the government should also think about the in-service teachers. "Our salaries have been revised but government has not made it clear whether or not it will implement the order with effect from January 2006 as recommended by the UGC," he said. The Lucknow University Teachers association also expressed the same sentiments.

Source : Times of India

Assam's Sixth Pay Commission Report submitted

2009-10-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

The report of the Sixth Assam Pay Commission was today officially handed over to Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.

The report of the Commission, set up in May 30, 2008, was handed over by its chairman Bhaskar Baruah to Gogoi.

The Chief Minister said the pay scales would be announced in line with the government's recent decision to grant salary at par with those with the central government.

Source : PTI

Gujarat Teachers demand Chaddha-panel pay

2009-10-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

Not all the college and university teachers in Gujarat are protesting aggressively against the state government for implementing the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission regarding their pay scales instead of that of the Chaddha Committee of the Union Grants Commission.

Various pro-government bodies of college and university teachers and principals are in talks with the state government regarding the issue. A delegation comprising representatives of teachers' and principals' associations met the state education minister on Monday to discuss the matter.

While the Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teachers' Associations (GSFUCTA) has come out strongly against the state government's resolution of introducing pay scales of teachers in higher education according to the Sixth Pay Commission, pro-BJP and pro-state government bodies of principals and teachers are trying to solve the issue without any confrontation. Among such organisations are several units of the teachers' wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, known as the Rashtriya Shaikshik Sangh, functional in Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat and Vadodara.

A member of the delegation that met state education minister Ramanlal Vora on Monday said, "We are trying to solve the issue without any confrontation with the government. We want to bring the issue on the table with the state government and are requesting the implementation of the Chaddha Committee's recommendations be considered."

There is a strong suspicion among teachers of higher education about the role of bureaucrats regarding the government resolution. Another member of the delegation present at the meeting said, "While the education minister listened to our representation and showed a positive response to our arguments, a bureaucrat from the education department present at the meeting raised questions about the workload and other administrative issues connected with college and university teachers. He was trying to justify the government resolution by saying that teachers in state-aided higher education institutions are not working."

He further said that some officers in the state bureaucracy considered themselves superior and believed that "nobody should be drawing a salary equal to or higher than that of IAS officers. After the implementation of the Chaddha Committee's recommendations, teachers will be able to get salaries equal to or more than many babus in the state bureaucracy." However, all the bodies were optimistic about their demand being satisfied.

Source : DNAINDIA

IIT to accept new pay scheme after Council meet

2009-10-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

After more than a month-long protest and token fasting for a day to protest the (modified) Sixth Pay Commission package, the faculty members of premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) appear to have resigned to implement the new pay structure with a few tweaks.

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“We have accepted the pay package for now,” confirmed a professor from IIT Bombay who did not wish to be named. The IIT-Delhi faculty forum decided to accept the pay last week after an assurance from the ministry of human resources that the pay structure norms could be relaxed.

Other IITs, too, are in the process of accepting the pay structure. B Sastry, president of IIT Kharagpur Faculty Association, said, “The debate is still on. One view is that IITs will postpone the implementation of the revised pay scale till the IIT Council meeting. Another view is that IITs should accept it now. We are waiting for the AIIITFF to communicate their opinion on this.”

M Thenmozhi, professor at IIT Madras and president of All India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF) told Business Standard, “We are waiting for the IIT Council meeting on October 19 when we would discuss some of the pending issues. After that we would implement the revised pay scheme, with a few changes that would be cleared by the Council. Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal has asked the Council to reconsider some of the IIT faculty issues like doing away with 40 per cent cap on promotions of assistant professors, 10 per cent cap on contractual assistant professorship, and Rs 500 increase in annual gross pay (AGP) of associate professors and professors.”

However, the issue of flexible cadre — which allows deserving candidates to move up the ranks, remains unresolved. The faculty was protesting about the 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade and provision of contractual appointment at entry level.

“The 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade is a major one. We are also concerned that with the number of students set to increase by 54 per cent in the next three years owing to the OBC and general intake, we will find it difficult to hire required faculty members,” said a faculty member.

Unlike the larger and older IITs, where the mandated faculty strength is 500-600, the newer ones have been sanctioned a strength of 60 faculty members. Yet, according to, the MHRD’s efforts to “micro-manage total number of faculty members in each cadre” will affect the productivity of IITs.

The IITs had also put before the ministry a demand for scholastic pay of Rs 15,000 per month, similar to that at DRDO, which was not addressed fully by the government.

Source : Business Standard

Gujarat University professors’ body rejects govt resolution on Sixth Pay Commission

2009-10-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

The Gujarat State Federation of University and College Teacher Association has demanded to reject the state government’s Sixth Pay Commission Government Resolution (GR) on Thursday. More than 50 office bearers of nine universities across the state have decided to conduct two campaigns on October 13 and October 14 to show their discontent towards the GR.

Speaking to Newsline, GFUCTA secretary Prof K S Shastri said: “On October 13, all the universities will organise bonfire of GR and later we will be conducting signature campaign, where the signatures will be done by blood of university teaching staff. We demand immediate withdrawl of GR with lock stock and barrel.”

He added, “This campaign will be carried out across nine universities of Gujarat and it will be called Raktakshar.”

Furthermore, every head of the department has been asked to write about their grievances about the Sixth Pay Commission and its recommendations

source : india express

Centre to fund 80 % for implementing 6th pay for teachers of technical institute | Official order here

2009-10-09T05:21:00.000-07:00

Centre today came out with a package to help state governments implement the 6th Pay Commission pay structure for teachers in degree technical colleges.

Under the package, the Centre will provide partial financial assistance to those states that want to implement the revised pay structure for teachers in degree technical colleges, including architecture, town planning, pharmacy and applied arts and crafts institutions.

The state governments can implement the revised pay at par with the UGC scales of pay, a notification issued by the HRD Ministry in this regard said.

The financial assistance will be given only to the state and state-aided institutions where 100 per cent maintenance is being met by the state governments.

The Union government will provide financial assistance up to 80 per cent of the additional expenditure to be incurred by the states for implementing the revised package for the period from January 2006 to March 2010.

The states will have to bear the rest of the cost for this period. However, the states will have to bear the full cost for the revised pay structure from April 2010, the notification said.

The Central assistance will be restricted to revision of pay only, it said

View official order

Pay hike for psu bank employees soon

2009-10-09T05:16:00.000-07:00

The public sector bank employees can now expect a pay hike soon. Finance ministry officials have said that the talks between the Indian bankers' Association, the employee unions and the government are in the last stage of finalization. Government officials have indicated a huge tab of Rs 9000 crore for this fiscal alone.

This hike will be first in five years. Around eight lakh public sector bank employees are due for this pay revision.

After a discussion of around six months, the rate of salary hike is almost decided. The finance ministry officials said that nineteen state-run banks were expected to receive a hike of 17.5%.the pay hike will be effective till October 2012, which implies that annual hike of 17.5 percent will be repeated every year till 2012.

For the current year alone, the decided payout is a massive Rs 4800 crore. However SBI and its subsidiaries are not entitled to this pay hike since they are governed by a different act.

Apart from a raise in the salary, bankers are also demanding a pension option. This will further push up the tab. The government has indicated that the pension burden would have to be shared by both the banks and the employees and this would be done by adjusting a certain portion of pay hike for pension payouts. Banks would have to maintain provisions worth Rs. 6000 crore to meet the obligation of 2.5 lakh employees.

IBA is in favour of employees picking up 30 percent of the tab that amounts to Rs 1200 crore. The remaining 70 percent will be paid by bank managements

Source : rupeetimes

IIT Delhi Faculty Forum to accept sixth Pay Commission

2009-10-08T01:30:00.000-07:00

With government's assurance that the pay structure norms could be relaxed by IITs, the IIT Delhi Faculty Forum has decided to accept the 6th Pay Commission package.

"We have been given a lot of assurance by the government. We expect that the assurances will be implemented. We are asking our faculty to accept the new package," Prof S S Murthy, president of IIT Delhi Faculty Forum, said.

The IIT Delhi Faculty Forum met here for the last two days and passed a resolution today for accepting the new package.

However, the All India IIT Faculty Federation president Prof M Thenmozhi said the faculty forum of a few other IITs are waiting for some more time till the clear picture emerges about how the IITs are going to implement the promises made by the government.

The IIT Faculty Federation had gone on a day-long fast on September 24 to protest certain "anomalies" in the pay structure. The faculty was protesting 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade and provision of contractual appointment at entry level

Source : Zee News

Latest updates | IIT professors make case for more flexibility

2009-10-04T06:09:00.000-07:00

The IIT faculty on Saturday managed to convince the directors and Prime Minister's principal secretary TKA Nair that without flexibility
the IIT system will lose its novelty.

While the directors agreed to set up two committees to look into their demands, Nair promised to convey the concerns of the faculty to PM Manmohan Singh.

After a fruitful meeting with the directors, the faculty members met Nair in the evening and told him that there is an apprehension in IITs about losing flexibility. "Flexibility has allowed IITs to achieve so many things. We should be allowed to retain that," M Thenmozhi, president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation told TOI.

She said Nair was also appraised about the faculty's meeting with HRD minister Kapil Sibal and IIT directors. She said, "We also told him that it is important that a better pay package be given at the entry level to attract the best talent."

In the three-hour-long meeting of faculty federation with IIT directors, it was decided that the first committee would evolve the criterion for promotion of 40% professors to the senior grade. The second committee would evolve the modalities for implementation of the Performance Related Incentive Scheme.

As for the three years' mandatory experience for the job of assistant professors, it has been decided that the IIT directors will bring up the issue in the meeting of the IIT Council that will take place on October 19. A whole gamut of issues, including medical facilities for the teachers after retirement and improving the number of foreign students in IITs, will be discussed in the council meeting.

Stressing that the faculty and directors are not at loggerheads, director of IIT-Kanpur Sanjay Dhande said the committee that would look into the promotion of professors is likely to submit its report in four to six weeks and the committee on PRIS would come up with its recommendations in two months.

After meeting the representatives of Faculty Federation, Dhande said the recommendations of the first committee would form the basis on which a "professor will move from Rs 10,500 academic grade pay to Rs 12,000 academic grade pay". Dhande said steps would be taken to ensure that bright young people join IIT faculty.

The IIT faculty has been saying that the provision for contractual appointment at the entry level will not attract young people to join the faculty.

"We want to have young people. We have been attracting the best talent so far and should continue to do so," Dhande said.

President of IIT Delhi Faculty Forum Prof S S Murthy demanded that the academic grade pay of the IIT faculty, which was slashed by Rs 500 after the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, should be restored. "Though it would be a mere gesture, it would nonetheless be a big thing for the IIT faculty," he said.

Source : TOI

Arrears of Armed forces before Diwali

2009-10-02T04:57:00.000-07:00

Defence Minister AK Antony said that the Armed Forces must get all their pay arrears relating to the Sixth Central Pay Commission well in time before Diwali.

Addressing the Defence Accounts Day function here today, Antony commended the officials of the Controller General of Defence Accounts for adopting computerisation and speeding-up the salary computation systems.

“One of the major challenges before you all is to render prompt, efficient and hassle free pensionary services to nearly two million ex-servicemen and other retired Defence Personnel,” Antony said.

The Defence Minister called upon the Defence Accounts officials to implement optimally the austerity measures announced recently by the Government.

“The Prime Minister has underlined the importance of service delivery mechanisms,” he added.

Pointing out that the Defence outlay has been growing around 11 per cent per annum over the last few years, Antony called upon the Defence Accounts Department to ensure fair utilisation of the revenue resources and capital spending for the Defence sector.

The Defence Minister later released a vision document for the department. He applauded the department for its valuable ontributions in rationalising and simplifying the complicated processes and procedures in the Defence Procurement Manual – 009.

Source : trak.in

HRD Minister Sibal to meet IIT Faculty on Friday to end stand-off

2009-10-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

In a bid to end the stand-off between the government and agitating IIT faculty protesting anomalies in pay structure, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has agreed to meet the teachers on Friday.

This comes against the backdrop of an ultimatum given by the IIT faculty to the HRD Ministry for holding a joint meeting of ministry representatives and teachers before October one to resolve the issue.

The IIT faculty had gone on fast on 24th September to oppose certain provisions in the pay structure like 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to senior grade and contractual appointment of Ph.D holders at the entry level.

Sibal had disapproved the agitation by the teachers and said the ministry should not be given ultimatum for talks.

He had justified the contentious provisions saying such conditions were aimed at promoting excellence. But the Board of Governors of the IITs will continue to have powers to relax norms for exceptional cases, Sibal had said.

However, as the IIT faculty stuck to their stand, the minister agreed to meet the teachers tomorrow. The IIT faculty has been informed about the development, the ministry said.

"We are very happy that the minister is giving us time. We are looking forward to a positive response from the government to our demand," All India IIT Faculty Federation president Prof M Thenmozhi said. (BJ-01/10)

Source : ddinews

Rajasthan State clears higher pay for college, university teachers

2009-10-01T12:26:00.000-07:00

With just days to go before Diwali, the state cabinet approved the implementation of the recommendations of Chaddha Committee on the revised
pay scale for university and college teachers in Rajasthan. The decision was taken at a cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister Ashok Gehlot here on Wednesday.

The teachers working in universities, colleges and government-aided colleges in the state, librarians, physical education teachers and Sanskrit teachers will get the benefit of the revised UGC pay scale from January 1, 2006. They will get cash payment of the revised pay from this October. The arrears from January 1, 2006, to September 2009 will be paid in two instalments.

While 60% of the arrears will be deposited in the GPF account of the employee in the current financial year, the remaining 40% will be deposited in GPF in the next financial year. The decision will benefit 4,128 college teachers, 1,048 university teachers and 980 teachers of government-aided institutions.

The state cabinet has also decided to give the benefit of the sixth pay commission recommendations to the chairman and the members of the State Human Rights Commission. The chairman of the commission will get Rs 90,000 as salary; he was earlier drawing Rs 30,000. The salary of the members of the commission has been increased from Rs 26,000 to Rs 80,000. Here, too, the revised pay scale will be implemented from January 1, 2006. The RPSC chairman and members will also get Rs 80,000 and Rs 67,000 respectively as salary

Source : Times of India

Air India to pay incentives(PLI) by Oct 7

2009-09-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

Air India has agreed today to pay the productivity-linked incentive, in short called as PLI, to all sections of its employees on 7th of October.

Jitendra Bhargava, the executive director of Air India said on Tuesday, “Air India will pay the August PLI payable in September on October 7.”

Bhargava also said that the September salaries of the employees have been already paid to their respective bank accounts. He further mentioned that the PLI will be paid in full.

Air India has cancelled fourteen international and seventy-nine domestic flights on the fourth day i.e. Tuesday of the strike. The strike has been called by a section of executive pilots who are protesting against the up to 50% cut in their PLIs effected by the management.

Jitendra Bhargava also mentioned that 116 pilots from Indian Airlines (IA) and 72 from Air India (AI) reported sick on Tuesday

Source : dailynews365

IIM-A accepts new pay structure, but has concerns

2009-09-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has accepted the pay structure revision as suggested by the Centre but has kept its implementation in abeyance for a month due to some concerns.

"The IIM-A faculty council has accepted the decision on the pay structure revision suggested by the government in principle, but we have some concerns regarding promotion and recruitment policies," IIM-A Director Dr Samir Barua told reporters today, while speaking about major decisions taken at the institute's Board of Governors meeting held last week.

"We have kept the implementation of the pay structure recommendations in abeyance for a month and conveyed our concerns to the ministry (Ministry of Human Resource Development)," he said.

The IIM-A expects that status of their concerns will be clear in a month's time, Barua said.

Source : PTI News

Kerala College teachers likely to get revised payscale

2009-09-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

If everything goes according to plan, college teachers in the State would get a pay hike of two to three times their present salary.

Sources said that the Finance and Higher Education Departments are in the final leg of discussions regarding the recommendations submitted by the pay review committee of University Grants Commission (UGC) on revised pay and allowances for academic staff in colleges.

The UGC pay panel has recommended the renaming of the post of lecturer as assistant professor. Other proposals include are the creation of new posts such as senior professor and professor eminence in universities.

Education Minister M.A. Baby told `Express’ that the State Government had in principle agreed to implement the revised UGC pay-scale.

However, there is need for more discussions to remove certain intricacies regarding its implementation.

The discussions to sort out the intricacies are on, he said.

The Central Government will provide 100 percent assistance for the additional expenditure for five years to implement the recommendations.

Additional assistance to the extent of 50 percent will be provided for the next five years to only those States which implement the recommendations successfully in toto.

The UGC will review the implementation in the fifth year for the additional assistance.

All recommendations have to be implemented in toto as a package with effect from January 1, 2006. However, various allowances except DA will be admissible with effect from September 1, 2008.

The committee had also recommended multi-source assessment of teachers including self-assessment, assessment by students who have been taught a course by the teacher and assessment by academic heads.

UGC should evolve parameters relevant to universities and colleges respectively for carrying out such evaluations throughout the country in a uniform manner.

As per the recommendation, ateacher should spend at least five hours everyday for five days a week in the institution for teaching, holding tutorials, guiding research or carrying out co-curricular activities.

The committee also recommended leave travel concession for travelling three times in a four-year block, not exceeding once in a year. LTC will be allowed to any place in India once in a block of four years. That is a total of four LTC in a block of four years, but not exceeding one in any one year.The committee proposed that teachers in universities and colleges should be encouraged to undertake consultancy, directing projects, registering patents, research and development projects and technology transfers. If the amount received from consultancy work goes beyond 30 percent of the gross salary, it will be split in the 70:30 ratio between teacher and the institution. PRESENT AND PROPOSED PAYSCALE FOR UNIVERSITY TEACHERS

(In the order of present and proposed pay scale) Assistant Professor (presently lecturer): existing Rs 8000-275-13500, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 6600 Assistant Professor (senior scale) (presently lecturer senior scale): existing Rs 10000-325-15200, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 7200 Assistant Professor (selection scale)/Associate Professor (Presently Lecturer selection grade): existing Rs 12000-420-18300, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 8000 Professor: existing Rs 16400-450-20900-500-22400, new pay band Rs 37400-67000, grade pay Rs 11000 Senior Professor (new post): Rs 37400-67000, grade pay Rs 12000 Pro-Vice-Chancellor: existing Rs 18400-500-22400, new pay band Rs 37400-67000 plus four advanced increments, grade pay Rs 12000. Professor Eminence(new post): Rs 80,000 (fixed) Vice-Chancellor: Rs 25000 (fixed) new pay band Rs 80000 (fixed). PRESENT AND PROPOSED PAYSCALE FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS (In the order of present and proposed pay scale) Assistant Professor (presently lecturer): existing Rs 8000-275-13500, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 6600 Assistant Professor (senior scale) (Presently lecturer senior scale): existing Rs 10000-325-15200, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 7200 Assistant Professor (selection scale)/Associate professor (Presently Lecturer selection grade): existing Rs 12000-420-18300, new pay band Rs 15600-39100, grade pay Rs 8000 Senior Associate Professor (new post proposed): Rs 37400-67000, Grade pay-Rs 8700 Professor in PG colleges (new post proposed): Rs 37400-67000, grade pay Rs 11000 Principal of UG college: Rs 12000-18300, new pay band Rs 37400-67000 plus two advanced increments, grade pay Rs 8700 Principal of PG college: Rs 16400-50-20900-500-22400, new pay band Rs 37400-67000 plus two advanced increments, grade pay Rs 11000.

Source : Expressbuzz

IIT faculty on a day long hunger strike

2009-09-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

Faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) are observing a day long hunger strike to reiterate their disagreement with the Human Resource Ministry’s revised notification on Sixth Pay Commission.
They submitted a memorandum to withdraw the 40 per cent cap on promotion of professors to the senior grade, but the ministry has rejected their demand.
Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, said the government wants to give more freedom to elite institutes provided they come up with a futuristic vision on achieving excellence.
Sibal said that IITs are brand institutes of the country and the government respects them. He added that the government wants to give them more autonomy only if they discuss their vision plan.
He said the vision should reflect strategies to raise faculty income levels so that they do not rely on the government to achieve excellence

Source : Indian Express

Madhya Pradesh University staff to get Sixth pay scale

2009-09-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

State government has issued due orders to grant benefit of sixth pay commission to officers and employees of all the seven Universities on Wednesday. Government has authorised university administration to give the benefit of pay scale to the employees. Due to this there will be no additional financial burden on the Government.
According to the orders issued by Higher Education Department conditions have been fixed to grant pay scale to professors in the university. Department has clarified that the University will bear the additional burden of finances though its sources. Barring grant State government will not give any other financial help. Higher Education Department has made it clear that University will be able to give benefit of new pay scale to its employees after making estimate of its financial resources by consent of competent officer.
It is worth mentioning here that in all the seven universities of State officers and employees were agitating for sixth pay scale. Due to this work of universities was stalled.
After continuous strike of 10 days government has accepted the demand of university staff. Although the government had decided earlier about giving the pay scale and throughout the day on Tuesday concerted efforts were made in Mantralaya regarding this. Finance Department had given its formal approval on Tuesday only. On Wednesday after the approval of Higher Education Minister orders were issued.

Source: Central Chronicle

Delhi cabinet clears hike in wages of power company employees

2009-09-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

The Delhi Cabinet approved enhanced pay package for around 4,000 employees of government power companies.

The Cabinet accepted the recommendations of a wage revision committee that suggested slightly better pay package for the power companies than the recommendations of the sixth Central Pay Commission, officials said.

They said around 4,000 employees of the IPGCL (Indraprastha Power Generation Co Ltd), Delhi Transco Limited, PPCL (Pragati Power Corporation Limited) and DPCL (Delhi Power Company Limited) would be benefited from this decision.

The recommendations would be implemented retrospectively with effect from January 1, 2006.

The Wage Revision Committee headed by Justice (Retd) Lokeshwar Prasad submitted its report to the city government in December last year which was further examined by a review committee.

The officials further said that the approved recommendations are slightly better than the recommendations of the sixth Central Pay Commission.

The recommendations have been accepted in principle and a detailed office order would be issued by the concerned companies at the earliest, they said

Source : Economics Times

IIT teachers call for a 45% hike in starting salary

2009-09-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

Faculty members of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on Monday demanded that their pay be linked to performance and entry level salary raised by at least 45%.

“At a time when private engineering colleges are offering much higher salaries, it would be very difficult to attract young talent unless salaries are raised,” said M. Thenmozhi, a professor of management studies at IIT Madras and president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation.

The federation has been protesting a new pay structure for Centrally funded technical institutes—which includes the IITs and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)—that has been notified by the human resource development (HRD) ministry, which oversees these premier institutions.

Representatives of the grouping, who met in Kolkata and prepared a charter of demands related to pay, said that some 3,000 teachers in IITs across the country would observe a hunger strike on 24 September, which they clarified will not disturb the holding of regular classes.

The federation has demanded that entry level salary be raised to Rs38,000 a month from Rs26,000. It has also said that pay of faculty should be linked to performance to the extent of 20-40% of basic salary.

In a related development, Press Trust of India reported that IIM Ahmedabad’s board of directors will meet on 25 September to discuss the implementation of the new pay structure along the lines of the Sixth Pay Commission, which has been opposed by faculty members. A spokeswoman for the institute declined to confirm the agenda of the board meeting.

The IIT teachers’ federation said in Kolkata that it would place their demands with the HRD ministry on Tuesday and expects a settlement on pay revision by the end of this month, failing which it would intensify its protests.

The teachers are also opposing a rule that stipulates only 10% of the faculty of an IIT could be hired as assistant professors. Under the current norms, assistant professors are hired on contract and offered permanent jobs only on completion of three years of service. Teachers say they should be offered permanent jobs from the beginning.

They are also opposed to the government’s stipulation that an IIT could only hire people as professors if they have taught at an IIT, IIM or Indian Institute of Science for at least four years.

“We do not accept the ministry’s interference in selection policies,” the All India IIT Faculty Federation said in a statement. “Specifying things such as one should be an assistant professor for at least four years… to be considered for the post of a professor is absolutely unacceptable.”

The teachers are also opposing a 40% cap on professors drawing the highest academic grade pay (AGP) of Rs12,000 a month. Only professors with six years of experience are entitled to AGP of Rs12,000 a month. Currently, AGP for associate professors and professors with less than six years of experience is Rs9,500 and Rs10,500, respectively.

The faculty wants the cap removed and say the entitlement to monthly AGP of Rs12,000 should be decided only on merit. Those who meet stringent criteria for advancing to higher AGP should be given higher pay. There shouldn’t be any cap on such promotion, the federation said.

Even students, some teachers claimed, were supporting their demands. “Many students have been voicing their concerns through blogs,” said Sanjoy Ghosh, a professor of biotechnology at IIT Roorkee.

Source : livemint

IIT, IIM reject pay scale, autonomy

2009-09-21T04:46:00.000-07:00

Terming the latest HRD Ministry proposals for pay scale and autonomy ''infringement'' on academic freedom, the IIT and IIM professors have joined forces for the first time to take on the ministry.

A joint charter demanding better pay scale and greater autonomy has been prepared by faculties from both premier institutions, which they plan to hand over to HRD Minister Kapil Sibal. “It’s the first time professors from both institutions are sitting together to discuss the Sixth Pay Commission and what it implies to us,” said Bharat Sheth, a Professor at IIT Mumbai.

The faculty council of IIM-A, which had met in Ahmedabad on Saturday, had opposed the proposed pay structure and has asked the institute’s director to delay its implementation by a month until they decide further course of action.

“The council has termed the ministry’s proposals infringement on academic freedom,” a senior faculty council member and IIM-A professor said after the council’s meeting.
Disappointed over the ministry response to a joint memorandum given by IIT and IIM faculties for pay hike, the IIM-A council has decided to discuss the issue with the other premier institutions, including IISc, Bangalore.

Dr Sheth insisted that autonomy, flexibility and hiring remain a greater concern for the professors than pay hike. “Institutions like NITs and IISc are also affected and we are having discussions with them,” he said. He said the unhappiness is mainly due to the HRD ministry’s attempt to micro-manage the Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), calling the ministry’s plans “very detrimental” to their future.

The HRD ministry has recently come out with a fresh notification on the pay structure of CFTIs which said that the post of lecturer-cum-post -doctoral fellows will be re-designated as assistant professor. It stated that they would be appointed on contract basis. However, the 40 per cent cap it laid on promoting professors to senior grade on the basis of performance, has created widespread anger amongst faculties of IIM-A.
“The notification that prescribes limit to the number of professors that can exist as a proportion of the professor in the institute drawing the highest grade pay, is totally uncalled for,” a senior faculty council member said. “Promotion of professors should be strictly merit-based, irrespective of the number of professors existing in a particular pay grade,” he said.

source : deccanherald

IIM-Ahmedabad faculty disappointed with MHRD letter

2009-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Faculty members of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) are `extremely disappointed' with the reply of Ministry of Human
Resource Development (MHRD), received on Thursday. They had written a letter to the ministry on September 4 stating their disapproval for revision of salaries for faculty members according to Sixth Pay Commission. A faculty meeting will be convened on Saturday to discuss the matter and future plan of action.

"Several issues were mentioned in our letter. The ministry somehow ignored all and replied to only one question. The ministry letter said that assistant professors, after three years of service, will automatically be upgraded to pay band 4. This despite the fact that we had recommended that assistant professors be directly given pay band 4," said a faculty member.

"We have learnt that other IITs and other IIMs are also holding faculty meetings and are equally disappointed with MHRD's decision. By Monday, the picture on our stand on this issue will get clearer," added the faculty member.

MHRD's letter on revision of pay packet according to the sixth pay commission was received on August 20. Faculty members had then decided to challenge this and set up a four four-member committee which framed a memorandum on behalf of the faculty council, giving examples of salaries of over Rs 20 lakh paid to assistant professors of Harvard Business School and Indian School of Business.

The major concern of faculty council of IIM-A is that if institutes of excellence are not given that status, the faculty-student ratio in the institute could suffer. "Top-notch faculty members in IIM-A should have a good reason to stay," said a source.

Source : Times of India

Pay Hike for Bihar state pensioners | Puja bonanza

2009-09-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

In a Puja-eve bonanza, Bihar government on Wednesday okayed the hike in pension to its retired employees, as recommended by the VIth Pay Commission, notionally from January 2006 and actually from April 2007. The dearness allowance of pensioners and employees is also up from 54% to 64% of the basic while the cap on gratuity is up from Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh.

The largess, which will benefit around 3.56 lakh pensioners, will lead to a recurrent additional annual expenditure of Rs 1,000 crore. The government will also pay Rs 1,700 crore as arrears to the pensioners in three instalments __ 15% in the current financial year, 40% in 2010-11 and 45% in 2011-12. The hiked pension is likely to be disbursed from the current month itself.

Cabinet principal secretary Girish Shankar said for the employees who have retired before January 1, 2006, there will be a 40% addition to the existing pension apart from the dearness relief. The minimum family pension will now be Rs 3,500 per month.

For those who retired after January 1, 2006, the pension amount will be 50% of the last emoluments or average of the last ten months’ salary, whichever is higher.

The government has also decided to pay 20% more in addition to the revised pension for pensioners in the age group of 80-85 years. This `extra’ will be 30% for pensioners aged 85 to 90 years; 40% for those aged 90 to 95 years and 50% for the pensioners in the age group of 95-100 years. Pensioners aged 100 years or more will get 100% additional pension.

The government has announced dearness relief at the rate of 2% from July 1, 2006; 6% from January 1, 2007, 9% from July 1, 2007, 12% from January 1, 2008, 16% from July 1, 2008 and at the rate of 22% from January 1, 2009.

The government has also announced three additional increments for members of the state judicial service as recommended by the Shetty Judicial Pay Commission.

Source : Times of India

Revise Pay scales for IIT faculty

2009-09-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

The human resource development ministry has revised controversial pay scales for IIT and IIM teachers, increasing salaries for assistant professors but ignoring other key demands and bypassing the Union cabinet that approved the contentious regime.

The revised pay notification, issued by the ministry late today evening, allows assistant professors to leap into a higher pay range after three years, but is silent on other demands made by teachers.

Assistant professors were entitled to a starting salary of Rs 30,000 a month with a rank-based increment of Rs 8,000 a month, under the contentious notification issued on August 18.

Under the revised notification, assistant professors will jump to a starting salary of Rs 37,400 a month with a rank-based increment — called the academic grade pay — of Rs 9,000 a month three years from now.

The revised notification was issued without approaching the cabinet which had earlier approved the contentious pay regime that had triggered unprecedented protests on campuses across the IITs, top government sources told the The Telegraph.

The ministry, sources said, had initially planned to approach the cabinet with the proposed revisions to pay scales, but later concluded that it could make the amendments without approaching the Prime Minister’s council.

The revised notification will, however, increase government expenditure on salaries significantly.

“The revised notification fails to meet most of our demands. We are also surprised that the cabinet has been bypassed,” Dr M. Thenmozhi, IIT Madras management professor and president of the All India IIT Faculty Federation said.

Faculty at each of the IITs will independently hold general body meetings tomorrow to decide on how they will approach the revised notification, Thenmozhi said.

Teachers across the IITs, for the first time in the over 50-year history of these institutions, boycotted classes and held protest marches on their campuses against the contentious August 18 notification.

The IIMs have also joined the IITs in their protest, and submitted memoranda to the ministry.

The IIT and IIM faculty have argued that there is a mismatch between repeated government claims of concern over a crippling faculty shortage at these apex institutions, and the absence of attempts to address this concern.

The new pay regime this year comes 10 years after the salary scales were last revised for IIT and IIM faculty. These institutes have over the past decade lost hundreds of faculty to better paying jobs in industry, private engineering and management institutions and foreign universities.

Apart from a pay hike for assistant professors, the IITs and the IIMs are demanding better remuneration for fresh entrants into the teaching profession — to attract young PhD scholars.

They are also demanding that the ministry lift a cap it has placed on the percentage of professors eligible to a higher academic grade pay. The faculty are demanding a performance-related incentive scheme in recognition of their research work.

Source : TElegraph

Jadavpur University (JU) teachers go on strike for sixth pay panel benefits

2009-09-16T09:29:00.000-07:00

Jadavpur University (JU) teachers went on a day-long strike today, demanding immediate implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission. Classes were suspended at the university as the teachers were busy agitating.
“We will forward our demands to the University Grants Commission, Ministry of Human Resource and Development and the State Higher Education Department,” said Keshav Bhattacharya, secretary of the Jadavpur University Teacher’s Association (JUTA), a CPM-backed teachers’ organisation.

“The UGC has not come out with a proper circular in this case. It is only after the UGC comes out with it that the state government will be able to implement the pay committee recommendations,” said Bhattacharya.

Till late in the evening, more than 200 teachers had joined the protests with JUTA.

As per recommendations of a UGC pay review committee headed by Professor G K Chaddha, 80 per cent of the arrears will be provided by the UGC and rest by the state government.

Although the hike in the salary of the university teachers has been substantial, the delay in implementation of the pay structure is troubling them.

So far the teachers are getting an additional sum as interim grant matching the increased salary.

In a government order on August 28 this year, the state government came out with certain specifications on the pay hike. “There are certain anomalies in the government order and we have pointed it out,” said a representative of the JUTA.

The recommendations have been in force since January 1, 2006, but the teachers have not got the increased salary as yet. “The state government will have to come up with a proper government order after which the Centre will release funds,” said Tarun Naskar, secretary of the All Bengal University Teachers Association, who is also a teacher at JU.

Source : Expressindia

New pay scales for PSEB employees recommended by Wage Formulation Committee

2009-09-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

The Wage Formulation Committee (WFC) constituted by PSEB for revision of pay scales of its employees has submitted its recommendation to the board.

PSEB had constituted a 5-member WFC was headed by K D Chudhary Member distribution of the board. The other members of the committee were Secretary of board, Chief Engineer IR & W, Chief Account’s officer and Deputy Secretary Finance. The various associations of the board were also associated with the committee.

The necessity of committee arose because recommendation of 5th. Pay commission cannot be directly implemented as the pay scale in number of categories were on higher side as compared to similar categories in the state government.

According to sources the committee has recommended better pay scales for number of categories to maintain a differential that already existed in pay scales. Moreover PSEB scales have always been one of the best pay scales in the country. The full board meeting of PSEB will decide the fate of this report.

H S Bedi President of PSEB Engineers Association has warned PSEB management for dithering on implementation of PSEB revised pay scales recommended by Wage Formulation Committee. In case PSEB management tries to link PSEB pay scales with those of government engineers they will be forced to launch an agitation Bedi said
Sourcw : Punjabnewsonline

One-man panel to go into pay anomaly in Tamil Nadu

2009-09-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Following the complaints of anomalies in pay scales while implementing the recommendations of the sixth pay commission for state government
employees, chief minister M Karunanidhi on Wednesday announced the appointment of a one-man committee to look into the issue.

Rajiv Ranjan, principal secretary of commercial taxes and registration department will head the committee, which should submit its report by December 31, 2009, he said in an official release.
SOurce : Times of India

5% DA Hike for Central Govt. Employees announced on 10.09.2009

2009-09-10T04:11:00.000-07:00

The government announced a five per cent increase in the dearness allowance for the central government employees and pensioners, with effect from July this year, entailing an outgo of about Rs 2,904 crore this fiscal.

Announcing the decision taken by the union cabinet, information and broadcasting minister Ambika Soni told reporters that the combined impact on the exchequer on account of hike in dearness allowance and relief would be of the order of Rs 4,355.35 crore for a full year.
The impact for the current fiscal would be Rs 2903.55 crore, as the increase would be effective for nine months only from July to March.
The five per cent increase in the DA for the employees and dearness relief for pensioners would be over the existing rate of 22 per cent of the basic pay or pension, the minister said

Source: Indianexpress

Pay hope for IIM & IIT

2009-09-10T00:15:00.000-07:00

The human resource development ministry may lift a cap restricting the number of IIT and IIM professors eligible for a higher salary based on their experience — a key demand in an unprecedented pay protest by the faculty.

A 40 per cent cap on the number of IIT and IIM professors eligible for the experience-based salary raise is likely to be lifted in a revised pay notification, government officials confirmed.

But ministry officials fear the move — conveyed by HRD minister Kapil Sibal to IIT faculty representatives yesterday — may trigger copycat demands from other institutions.

IIT and IIM faculty have for the past three weeks been protesting a new pay regime that snips salaries recommended by a central panel and ignores a slew of suggested incentives.

The Telegraph was the first to report on the new pay regime and the government’s decision to cut the proposed salaries.

IIT and IIM professors start with a salary of Rs 48,000 a month with a post-based increment — known as the academic grade pay (AGP) — of Rs 10,500 a month under the notified pay regime.

But the notified regime has a provision of a higher AGP, of Rs 12,000 a month, for professors who have held the post for over six years.

The notified pay structure, however, clarifies that only 40 per cent of professors at an institute can receive the higher AGP at any point in time.

The cap, IIT and IIM faculty have argued, may stall the growth of relatively younger professors, as seniors in the faculty would fill the higher salary posts till they retire.

The 40-per cent limit could also lead to nepotism and politics involving institute administrators in picking beneficiaries of the higher salary, the faculty have argued.

But Sibal’s consent to lifting the cap at the IITs and the IIMs could fuel similar demands from central universities and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs).

Central universities have a 10 per cent cap on professors eligible for a higher AGP while the NITs have a 20 per cent restriction. “The arguments that the IIT faculty have used are equally valid for universities and NITs too,” an HRD ministry official said.

Representatives of the Professors Forum of India — the country’s largest apolitical block of central university teachers — today met Sibal demanding that the 10 per cent cap be lifted.

The ministry has already agreed to the single biggest demand of the IIT and IIM faculty. The pay regime at the centre of the controversy places assistant professors in a salary range known as “pay band three”, with a starting salary of Rs 30,000 a month and a post-based increment of Rs 8,000 a month.

Unlike pay scales for central universities, however, there is no provision in this regime for upgrading assistant professors to a higher pay range starting at Rs 37,400 a month after three years of teaching.

IIT and IIM faculty have argued that their job requirements mandate that only those with three years’ teaching experience can apply for the post of assistant professor — and demanded higher starting salaries. The demand has been accepted

Source : Telegraph

Revised notification on IIT Pay soon - HRD minister Kapil Sibal

2009-09-08T23:57:00.000-07:00

Human Resource Development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal told representatives of the All-India IIT Faculty Federation (AIIITFF) that the ministry had looked into the issues raised by them on the 6th Pay Commission and a revised notification will be issued soon.

A five-member AIIITFF delegation met Sibal in New Delhi on Tuesday. "He assured us that the issues which we had raised had been considered. He said the government had done whatever it could and some issues had been addressed. But he wasn't specific on what those issues were. He said a new notification will be issued shortly," said IIT Bombay Faculty Forum secretary Soumyo Mukherji.

The federation, which was disappointed with the ministry's response to the demands raised by faculty from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on new pay scales and perks as per the 6th Pay Commission, had met on September 6 to take stock of the situation. A rejoinder to the ministry's response, which had been prepared by AIIITFF, was also submitted to the minister on Tuesday.

The federation will now wait for the notification before deciding on the next course of action. "We'll see whether the revised notification meets our expectations. We hope it will address our concerns. Thereafter, we'll decide on the future course of action," said Mukherji.

Source : dinindia

UFBU Meeting on 7th September, 2009

2009-09-08T23:51:00.000-07:00

A meeting of the UFBU was held today in Chennai. Leaders of all the 9 constituent unions were present. The meeting was presided over by Com. K.S. Shetty (President, AIBOC).

The meeting congratulated the bank employees and officers for their magnificent unity and amazing militancy and thus making the 2 days’ strike on 6th & 7th August, 2009 a resounding success.

The meeting noted that the unity of the rank and file under the banner of UFBU has ensured the thwarting of all attempts on the part of IBA and Government to retract from offers made. The meeting took for consideration the proposals of the IBA and decided to pursue the same with IBA in the next round of Bipartite Talks before taking a final decision.

Talks with IBA:

The IBA had fixed 12th September, 2009 for the next round of Talks. However, since the date is not convenient for a few constituent unions, we have asked for a revised date for the Talks within the next week or 10 days. As soon as the meeting is fixed and held, we shall inform you of further developments.

UP govt to implement 6th Pay Commission report of all state-owned enterprises and corporations

2009-09-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Uttar Pradesh government today decided to revise the pay scale of staff of all state-owned enterprises and corporations and to provide other benfits as per the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2006. The decision will benefit about 98,000 employees and officers of public sector enterprises and corporations except energy sector undertakings, a government spokesman said here.

It will entail an additional burden of Rs 305 crore annually which will be borne by the enterprises and corporations. However, the benefits of revised pay scale and other benefits will be subject to the economic capability of corporations and certain conditions, he said.

"No government assistance will be provided," the spokesman said. The government also decided to relax rules regarding payment of dearness allowance to the staff of enterprises and corporations and merge 50 per cent of the DA with the salary.

As per the decision, DA could be paid after assessiong the financial condition on the basis of audited balance sheet. To simplify the process, it has been decided to set up an empowered committee at the level of public enterprises department, the official spoeksman said.

IIM-Ahmedabad to submit memorandum on pay rise

2009-09-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

In a memorandum, to be submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) on Monday, faculty members of the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have expressed their displeasure at being on the same pay scales as that of the faculty members under the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The faculty council of IIM-A, in a draft submitted to the director of the institute today, has demanded almost double the salary entitled to them, in order to remove the parity that comes after the revision under the Sixth Pay Commission.

The draft has further requested for a “reconsideration of entry-level pay in order to attract and retain world-class talent at this centre of excellence,” according to sources close to the development.

The draft has further requested for a “reconsideration of entry-level pay in order to attract and retain world-class talent at this centre of excellence,” according to sources close to the development.

“Giving the pay mentioned by the ministry to such senior people from a premier institute is unfair as the faculty has worked for longer years to get to this place and deserve to be well-compensated. Already, there is hardly any demarcation between the other national universities and IIMs because of the pay structure, and the recent development has only added salt to the wounds. Although going the IIT way is not on our agenda now, we have requested the ministry for a reconsideration,” a senior faculty member at IIM-A said.

The faculty added that the draft also requested the government to reconsider the entry-level pay for the assistant professors as otherwise there would be parity between a student and an assistant professor’s salary, with time.

The draft mentions that the salary hike is expected to range between 20 per cent and 40 per cent, however, depending on the years of experience and other parameters, another source added. “We met the director and have submitted the report to him,” said Sanjay Varma, an IIM-A faculty, and one of the committee members appointed to look into the pay structure recommendations for the faculty of the institute.

When contacted, IIM-A Director Samir Barua said: “The memorandum regarding the pay revision will be submitted to the HRD ministry on Monday.” The demands of the IIM-A faculty come after the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) faculty members demanded a higher pay band.

Faculty members of IITs had recently gone on a mass casual leave to protest against the new pay regime passed by the union cabinet last month.

Source : Business Standard

IIT Bombay faculty joins nationwide stir over higher pay

2009-09-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Around 450 faculty members of IIT Bombay today joined the nationwide relay fast demanding better pay
structure.

Nearly 4,000 IIT faculty members in the country are participating in the agitation, which has entered its second phase. Ten days ago, the faculty members of the elite technology institutes had taken mass casual leave.

Faculty members here continued to teach but wore black badges as a mark of protest. They said Union HRD Ministry should consider their demand seriously as they are overburdened with additional 27 per cent of students through OBC quota and also have to cater to new and satellite IITs.

The faculty members had submitted a memorandum to the Ministry last month in support of their demand.

The IIT faculty is currently getting salaries as per the Sixth Pay Commission report, which according to them, is equal to UGC grade. They, however, want a higher scale as IITs are specialsed higher educational institutes.

Source : Times of India

PCMA welcome MHRD scales (UGC Pay Scales) in Punjab

2009-09-04T01:30:00.000-07:00

Punjab Commerce and Management Association (PCMA) has welcome the Notification of Department of Higher Education Government of Punjab for Implementation of UGC pay scales in universities and colleges of Punjab.

The Punjab Government has implemented the recommendations of the Ministry of Human Resources Development Government of India in toto. It is first time in the history of Punjab that Recommendations of the UGC and MHRD has been implemented in toto.

Prof. Ashwani Bhalla Executive Vice President of the PCMA said that PCMA was regularly and repeatedly appealing government of Punjab to Implement the pay scales for college and university teachers in toto. He said that creation of posts of professors in the colleges and award of pay-band-IV i.e (37400-67000) with grade of 9000 is a remarkable step of the government of punjab which will attract the talent in the teaching profession.

He said that New notification will definitely encourage the teachers towards the research and quality teaching. It is pertinent to mention here that as per the notification there will be three tier posts of teachers in the colleges and universities: Assistant Professors, Associate Professors and Professors. PCMA also welcome the career advancement scheme for the college and university teachers which is incentive based and encourage quality teaching .

A resolution was passed by the Executive committee of the PCMA to extend special thanks to Punjab Federation of College and University teachers organisation (PFACTO) who under the leadership of Dr. Jagwant Singh work very hard for getting the demands of the teachers accepted. The executive committee of the PCMA also extended heartiest thanks to the bearaucracy of Punjab and specially the Minister for Higher education, Dr. Upinderjeet Kaur for taking personal pains in getting the notification issued. Dr. Prem Kumar President Emiritus of the Punjab Commerce and Management Association said that on 5th September (Teachers' day) a national Level convention of teachers of commerce and management teachers will be held at Khalsa College Patiala which will pass a resolution for extending thanks to the government of Punjab

Source : Punjabonline

Meghalaya employees get 32 per cent pay hike

2009-09-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

The Meghalaya government has announced an overall pay hike of 32 per cent for all its employees with retrospective effect from January 1, 2007.

After a cabinet meeting last night, Chief Minister DD Lapang said the revised pay scale as recommended by the state's fourth pay commission will be implemented from October 1.

The state government will have to spend Rs 330 crore annually on salaries of about 70,000 employees.

Arrears, amounting to Rs 660 crore, would be divided between the current financial year and the subsequent years in the ratio of 40:60.

Meghalaya will require Rs 545 crore to implement the new pay scales. "The central government has assured us of a Rs 260 crore assistance for the purpose," Lapang said adding that for the remaining amount the state government will have to mobilise additional resources

Source : PTI

Puja bonus for West Bengal Govt. Employees

2009-09-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

Finance minister Asim Dasgupta today announced that 9.5 lakh state government employees, panchayat and civic staff, teachers of government and government-aided schools would get a puja bonus of Rs 1,000. “Similarly, pensioners will be given ex-gratia of Rs 400 as earlier. The move would benefit 4.3 lakh pensioners,” he said.

Employees whose gross monthly income does not exceed Rs 16,000 will be entitled to the bonus. For those with income more than this, the government will offer them a festival advance of Rs 1,000. “However, it will be left to them to avail of the advance,” Dasgupta said.

IIT and IIM Faculty pay hike goes to Cabinet Approval

2009-09-03T22:16:00.000-07:00

The Centre plans to approach the cabinet to amend a new pay regime for IIT and IIM faculty, agreeing to a quantum hike in assistant professor salaries to quell an unprecedented pay dispute rocking the institutes.

Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal today indicated to IIT directors the ministry’s plans to hike the pay of assistant professors — the lowest rung in the permanent faculty structure at the IITs, top officials said.

The HRD minister also asked the IITs to consider holding common counselling procedures during admissions with engineering colleges that admit students through the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE).

The AIEEE is used by a slew of engineering colleges, including the National Institutes of Technology, to select students. The IITs admit students through a Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) they conduct.

Under the HRD ministry proposal, the JEE and the AIEEE will continue to exist as separate entities, but the process of allotting seats to students — known as counselling — may be common.

Such a common counselling process would help reduce the number of seats that go vacant because students seek admissions at more than one institute — to ensure they get a seat somewhere — before eventually picking on one of them.

But HRD ministry sources confirmed that no decision was taken on this proposal.

Under the pay scales notified earlier this month, assistant professors were placed at a starting monthly salary of Rs 30,000, in a range referred to as pay band 3.

The HRD ministry has decided that salaries for assistant professors will now start at Rs 37,400 a month in a higher pay range — called pay band 4.

The academic grade pay — a rank-based increment — for assistant professors will remain at Rs 8,000 a month as notified earlier this month.

The Telegraph had yesterday reported the ministry’s plans to hike salaries of assistant professors to help tackle a faculty protest that saw IIT teachers boycotting classes for the first time ever.

Orrisa state govt to pay 30 pc arrear salary

2009-09-03T01:58:00.000-07:00

As a Dussehra gift, the State Government has decided to pay 30 per cent arrear salary to its employees before the festival begins.

The State Government had already paid 40 per cent of the arrear salary on account of the hike subsequent to the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. The rest 30 per cent will be paid next year.

The arrear dues of the Government was nearly Rs 6,000 crore. The expenditure of the Government for payment of arrears this time will be Rs 1,676 crore.

Already, arrears worth Rs 2,100 crore had been paid. This will be an additional burden of Rs 3,776 crore on the exchequer besides the enhanced salary after the Government accepted the recommendations of the Pay Commission. The annual salary bill has gone up by Rs 1,400 crore after the salary increase.

The State Government has decided to raise its tax resources to Rs 10,000 crore to meet the whopping burden on account of the increased salary and other welfare measures launched by it.

In the supplementary budget last year, the Government had made an allocation of Rs 2,255.36 crore for salary as per the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

In the current year budget, Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei had announced the possibility of borrowing to finance increased expenditure.

The Government planned borrowing of Rs 4,463.84 crore which included Rs 1,890.26 crore from the open market, Rs 244.55 crore from the government provident fund (GPF), Rs 820 crore negotiated loans from various institutions, Rs 1,183.9 crore from externally aided projects (EAPs), Rs 250 crore from small savings, Rs 18.2 crore from Central plan and Rs 17.11 crore from the centrally-sponsored projects (CSPs).

Besides, the State Government is planning to raise its resources by tapping various sources. One of the likely sources is excise revenue. It has been decided to increase it by Rs 200 crore and next fiscal the total excise revenue is likely to be Rs 850 crore.

Pay nod for IITs & IIMs

2009-09-01T22:28:00.000-07:00

The Centre has agreed to a jump in the salaries of assistant professors in IITs and IIMs, raising prospects of an early resolution of an unprecedented pay dispute that saw teachers boycotting classes.

The government has agreed to hike the starting salary of assistant professors by almost 25 per cent from that stipulated in a new pay regime it had notified earlier this month, top officials revealed.

The decision was firmed up today, on the eve of a meeting between human resource development minister Kapil Sibal and IIT directors to resolve the crisis.

Faculty at the IITs and the IIMs are protesting revised pay scales that snip salaries recommended by a central pay panel under former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta.

The pay regime notified earlier this month also ignores a slew of additional incentives suggested by the Mehta panel to counter the lure of better salaries offered by industry and foreign universities.

Poor salaries for assistant professors, the institutes argued, were at the root of the dispute.

Under the pay scales notified earlier this month, assistant professors were placed at a starting monthly salary of Rs 30,000, in a range referred to as pay band 3.

The HRD ministry has decided that salaries for assistant professors will now start at Rs 37,400 a month, in a higher pay range — called pay band 4.

The academic grade pay — a rank-based increment — for assistant professors will remain at Rs 8,000 a month, as notified earlier this month.

The ministry has not yet accepted demands from the IITs for additional incentives — financial compensation for the years spent in study and research instead of working, or a performance-related incentive scheme.

The salaries notified earlier this month — and first reported by The Telegraph on August 19 — represented the first hike in pay scales for the IIT and IIM faculties since 1999.

On learning about the notification, faculties across the IITs and IIMs protested against the new pay regime, wearing black bands. Teachers at different IITs took turns at boycotting classes.

The IITs last week submitted a memorandum of demands to the HRD ministry, threatening a mass hunger strike on September 5 — Teacher’s Day — if their demands were not accepted.

The IIMs have also formulated a similar charter of demands, though they have not specified any protest action they are planning.

Under current pay scales for teachers at India’s universities, assistant professor salaries automatically proceed from pay band 3 to pay band 4 after three years in service. The pay scales for IIT and IIM faculties notified this month did not include any similar provision for shifting the salaries of assistant professors to pay band 4 after three years.

Teachers at the IITs and the IIMs have traditionally been paid higher than their counterparts at universities because of the higher demand they command in the corporate market.

Source : Telegraph

Lucknow University to pay revised salary

2009-09-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Lucknow University on Monday decided to pay revised salaries at par with recommendation of the 6th Pay Commission to teachers and
employees. The salary for August payable in September would be based on revised scale. The decision has been taken in anticipation that the state government will give university adequate grant in near future to fill the gap.

The revised scales would cost university coffers around Rs 5 crore. It would benefit over 450 teachers and 1,000 non-teaching staff. The decision has been able to defer the boycott threat given by teachers in case they were not paid revised scale from September. The revised scales are based on the University Grants Commission (UGC) recommendations and have already been implemented in central universities.

Though the state government has also implemented new scales in government and government-aided colleges, state universities are yet to receive grants. This when the 80% of the expenditure in salaries will be paid by the UGC and 20% will have to be borne by the government/university. As Lucknow University was reeling under acute financial crisis, it said it was not in position to bear the burden for long.

However, the teachers were adamant on their stand demanding revised scales from September, failing which they had threatened to go on strike. University authorities after consulting government officers decided to pay the revised scales following assurance that government would give the required grant as early as possible. However, despite that university would need more money to meet the deficit.

New appointees get 6th Pay panel benefit

2009-09-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

The government today extended the benefit of the 6th Pay Commission to the recruits appointed after 1 January 2006. They were denied such benefits when the recommendations of the commission were implemented initially.
As per SRO-266 issued Monday the government has amended the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules 2009 bringing all those employees appointed after 1st January 2006 under the ambit of the 6th Pay Commission

Source : GreaterKashmir

IIM faculty to approach Centre over pay hike

2009-08-31T23:29:00.001-07:00

After the IITs, its now the turn of the country’s premier management institutes, the IIMs, to raise the banner of revolt against the pay hikes for their faculty, recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission. Peeved by the short shrift given to them by the government, the faculty members of the elite Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad have decided to approach the Centre within a week with demands for the upgrade of their pay packages.

At a two-hour long faculty committee meeting spearheaded by IIM-A director Sameer Baruah, a decision has been taken to seek redressal from the Centre failing which the IIM-A faculty will be forced to explore other stronger forms of agitation, including resorting to mass casual leave and strikes in line with what the faculty of the IITs are currently adopting. The IIM-A faculty is planning to work in tandem with the other two older IIMs, namely IIM Bangalore and IIM Kolkata, to work out a strategy of making their displeasure felt. “We are not banking on the support of the newer IIMs as they are likely to be browbeaten by the centre into towing its line given their dependence on the centre for their funds,” revealed a senior faculty member on condition of anonymity.

He further disclosed that there was major disgruntlement within the IIM-A against the Sixth Pay Commission notification received last week from the Centre. “Though the exact implications are still being worked out and the salary hike will range anywhere between 15 to 40% depending on parameters like number of years of service etc, one thing is clear. We’ve not been given our due as a premier institute both by the government and the bureaucracy,” the professor said.

According to him, the IIMs have not been given their due as the best management institutes in the country. “While earlier as per the old scale, an assistant professor of an IIT or IIM was paid two to three levels above the UGC grade, the Sixth Pay Commission has downgraded this difference. What is the rationale for doing this given the fact that we are institutes of excellence,” he asked.

Furthermore, the faculty members also felt that if the country really needed world-class institutes, the salaries should be commensurate with the that. For instance, they demanded parity of salaries with the salaries being paid to the Secretaries to the Centre and the top executives of navratnas and public sector undertakings.

In view of the prevailing disparities, the IIM-A faculty has demanded a pay hike of at least Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. “Given the fact that the IIMs are facing a faculty shortage anywhere between 20 to 50 per cent, urgent steps need to be taken to retain and attract the best faculty to these institutions,” the IIM-A source said.

Over the past five years, the IIMs have been losing faculty to private sector educational institutes like the ISB which pay salaries four times higher. An assistant professor of an IIM has a pay packet of Rs 5-7 lakh compared to Rs 20-25 lakh which his counterpart at ISB earns. The situation is expected to turn grimmer with the entry of foreign institutes which too will attract faculty with bigger and better pay packages.

Source : Financial Express

PCMA appeal to HRD minsiter for uniform implementaion of pay scales

2009-08-31T09:05:00.000-07:00

Punjab Commerce and Management Association (PCMA) have appealed to the Union Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibbal to intervene and ensure uniform implementation of MHRD recommended pay scales in all the states.

Association members were pained by the distortions made by the bureaucracy while making the notification for the pay scales of college and university teachers in the state of Haryana.

Association today written a letter to HRD Minister which states that notification issued by the Ministry of human resources development Government of India concerning the scheme of revision of pay of teachers and equivalent cadres in universities and colleges dated 31-12-2008 still hangs in balance as most of the state governments has not yet implemented it for the one reason or the another even after the passing of eight months. Letter further states that The most disturbing fact which is becoming roadblock in the implementation, is the delay in the notifying the UGC regulations on revision of pay scales, minimum qualifications for appointment of teachers in universities and colleges and other measures for the maintenance of standards, 2009.

The University Grants Commission put a draft notification on its website for seeking suggestions on 18th February 2009, which was to be finalized after consultation with the stakeholders. The consultation process was completed till May 31st 2009 but still the draft regulations hangs in the sky and final regulations has still not been issued by the University Grants Commission. Secondly the draft regulation which was to be rectified because it exceeds in many respects the mandate of the UGC is still put on the website of the university commission which is causing confusion in implementation of MHRD Notification. Most of the state governments because of the Non-availability of the Final UGC regulations on the pay scales are keeping the promotions, upward movements, re-designations, etc. falling due on or after 1.1.2009 in abeyance.

PCMA Further requested the HRD Minister to issue advisory to the state governments to not to dilute the provisions of MHRD Notification on Pay scales of college and university teachers issued on 31-12-2008 and keep the spirit behind it.

Source : Punjab Online

40% interim relief for Assam Govt employees

2009-08-30T21:41:00.000-07:00

The State Government employees are in an upbeat mood as they would be getting 40 per cent interim relief with effect from January 1 this year. With the announcement of the new interim relief, the difference between the pay scales of the Central and State Government employees also came down considerably. Talking to The Assam Tribune, secretary general of the Sadau Asom Karmachari Parishad (SAKP), Bashab Kalita said that they were satisfied with the decision of the Government.

Kalita said that the State Government announced 15 percent interim relief with effect from April, 2008 and added 10 per cent more with effect from January 1 this year. However, because of the delay on the part of the State Pay Commission in submitting its report, the Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi announced the Government’s decision to add 15 per cent more to the interim relief with effect from January 1 this year and to pay the arrears before the ensuing Durga Puja festival.

The SAKP office bearer said that the differences between pay scales of the State and Central Governments would be reduced considerably after the state employees started receiving 40 per cent interim relief.

Kalita said that the State pay Commission was scheduled to submit its report by the end of May, but it was given three months’ extension despite strong opposition from the employees. He said that the Commission was given extension for another month up to the end of September, which forced the SAKP to announce an agitational programme. However, the agitational programme has been withdrawn following the decision of the State Government to increase the interim relief to 40 per cent. The Chief Minister also assured the SAKP that no further extension would be given to the Pay Commission to submit its report.

The SAKP has been demanding that the new pay scale should be given to the employees with effect from January, 2006 as was given to the Central Government employees. He also alleged that some of the teachers and other employees are yet to receive the arrears due to them for the period from January1, 1996 to July 31, 1998 and demanded that the Government should immediately look into the matter.

Source : Assam Tribune

Pay panel suggestions for PMC workers okayed

2009-08-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

The standing committee of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) on Saturday approved a proposal to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations for about 20,000 civic employees. The decision will put an annual burden of Rs 250 crore on the civic coffer.

The decision to implement the pay panel recommendations for civic employees also saw the changed political alignments at work in the PMC for the first time. Having called off the Pune Pattern recently, the BJP- Shiv Sena on Saturday opposed the move. The saffron combine alleged that the NCP-Congress had taken a hasty decision in the matter to gain political mileage ahead of the assembly polls. The Congress, on its part, supported the proposal in keeping with the altered political equations.

Speaking to reporters, standing committee chairman Nilesh Nikam said, "The PMC had appointed a panel headed by (NCP corporator) Anil Bhosale to decide on the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations for PMC employees. The panel submitted its report and accordingly, the standing committee decided to give the green signal for the implementation. The recommendations will be implemented next year and the PMC employees will get arrears from November 2008. This will put an additional burden of about Rs 250 crore on the civic body."

"The PMC pays salaries of about Rs 400 crore every year to its staff. In keeping with the government directives, the amount is less than 35 per cent of the total civic budget," Nikam said.

The BJP and Shiv Sena members in the standing committee opposed the decision. "The NCP-Congress made unnecessary haste to push the proposal through. We are not opposing the implementation of the Pay Commission recommendations per se. But the fact is that the PMC would not be able to do so considering the economic conditions. Also, the state government has strictly asked municipal corporations to give a serious thought to their financial health before taking any decision in this regard," BJP corporator Ujwal Keskar said.

Shiv Sena's Sham Desphande said if the PMC goes ahead with the move, it will be spending about 60-80 per cent of its revenue on salaries.

The NCP-Congress has called a special general body meeting on Friday to approve the standing committee's decision to implement the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations.

Source : Times of India

Gujarat Govt to revise daily wagers’ pay scale after 11 years

2009-08-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

In a bid to benefit nearly 19,000 daily wage earners working under various state government departments, the state Roads and Buildings Department (RBD) has decided to revise their monthly wages as per the norms laid down by the Sixth Pay Commission. The move has come 11 years after the last wage revision was undertaken in 1998.
According to the revised wages, the workers who were under the pay-scale of Rs 2,550-3,200 will now fall in the pay-scale of Rs 4,440-7,448.

They will get Rs 1,300 as Grade Pay.

Similarly, those under the Rs 3,050-4,590 scale will now come under the revised pay scale of Rs 5,200-20,208, with Rs 1,900 as Grade Pay.

Bharat Trivedi, Deputy Secretary, RBD, said, “This revision is applicable for workers who were getting salaries as per the provisions of the Fifth Pay Commission till now and their salaries were regularised before the cut- off date of October 17, 1988.”

RBD officials said the pay revision would be operative from January 1, 2006 but the workers will get arrears in cash only for the period starting April 1, 2009. For the period between January 1, 2006 and March 31, 2009, the arrears would be deposited in their respective Provident Fund accounts over a period of five years, with 20 per cent contribution every year.

Also, the workers will not be able to withdraw this sum before the completion of five years.

Trivedi said that RBD alone employs almost 10,000 workers in various construction activities across the state, including highways, roads, canals and government buildings.

“The remaining 9,000 workers set to benefit include those in the Narmada and Water Resources, Forest and Environment, Panchayats and Rural Housing as well as Agriculture and Cooperation Department,” he said.

Express India

TN govt. pay hike for varsity, college teachers

2009-08-29T06:32:00.000-07:00

The Tamil Nadu government on Saturday announced a pay hike for teachers in universities, government colleges and government-aided colleges.

The move would benefit 20,000 teachers and entail an additional annual expenditure of Rs 557.49 crore to the government.

Disclosing details of the government’s decision, Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, told reporters that a newly-appointed assistant professor would get Rs 26,352 a month against the present pay of Rs 19,680. The minimum increase would be Rs 6,672.

Likewise, in the case of professors, the revised pay would be Rs 62,085 against their current pay of Rs 40,344, an increase of Rs 21,741.

As done in the case of government employees, the new pay scales would be fixed notionally from January 1, 2006. The monetary benefit would be given since January 1, 2007. The arrears would be given in three installments.

The Chief Minister also said that there would be no change in the structure of the revised pay scale and academic grade pay, as announced by the Union government on the basis of the University Grants Commission’s recommendation.

The government would follow another recommendation of the Commission that there be three designations of teachers — assistant professors, associate professors and professors.

As advised by the UGC, the pay scales of librarians, assistant librarians, physical education directors, deputy and assistant physical education directors would also be revised. They would also receive pension, family pension and other pensionary benefits, as given to the government employees.

The conditions followed for the provision of other allowances to the government employees would be applicable in the case of the teachers, Mr. Karunanidhi added.

Source : Hindu

GEA demands more salary, incentives for Vidyut Sahayaks

2009-08-29T03:54:00.000-07:00

The GEB Engineers’ Association (GEA) has demanded that Vidyut sahayaks appointed on contractual basis should be paid as per the standards of engineers, if they join on posts vacated by any regular engineer.
The officials have also asked the Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) to increase the salary of the sahayaks since the engineers are getting revised salary as per the Sixth Pay Commission. Sahayaks are assistants to regular engineers. They take charge once the regular engineers get promotion or leave the job.
According to present standards, sahayaks are paid anything between Rs 3,500 to Rs 9,000, which is much less than what regular engineers get.
GUVNL officials say that the salaries are being paid as per the contract signed between the associations and the management. They added that the sahayaks’ term has also been reduced from 3 years to 2 years.

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) special panel okays ' Sixth Pay' for all employees

2009-08-28T17:40:00.000-07:00

A special committee appointed to take decisions regarding the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission for the employees of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), on Friday gave approval to give the benefits to all the civic employees at PMC. The decision will now come up before the general body for the final approval.
The committee has given nine recommendations for the implementation of the sixth pay commission and decided to give the benefits to all the PMC officials and employees.

The committee also said that if necessary funds are not available, they should be made available in the budget. As per the standing committee decision regarding this, Rs 15,000 advance should be given to the employees. The committee has also said that as per the state government directions, the dues should be paid to the employees in five installments. The first installment should be given in 2010-11. The first installment would directly be paid at the provident fund.

The committee has given following recommendations. As per the municipal commissioner’s report, the salary hike should be 40 per cent in addition to the maximum salary amount. The 40 per cent grade pay should be as per the pay scale. The report has also suggested 1.5 per cent hike in the allowances, which the committee decided to hike by another 0.5 per cent.

The revised pay scale after the implementation of Sixth Pay should be hiked to Rs 15,600 to Rs 39,100. The revised pay-scale for city engineer and health chief should be Rs 34,000 to Rs 67,000 as per Pay Band 4. Besides this, the grade pay should be revised to Rs 11,000.

For the post of food inspector, the revised pay scale of Rs 9,300 –Rs 34,800 should be given approval, the recommendations state. It is further decided that the veterinary officer should be given Non-Practicing Allowance (NPA).

Source : Express India

PCMA demanded full implementation of UGC pay scales

2009-08-28T03:19:00.000-07:00

Punjab Commerce and Management Association has appealed to the government of Punjab to make full notification of pay scales for college and university teachers as recommended by Ministry of human resources development government of India.

PCMA rejected the theory of partial notification of grade conversion tables. In an executive meeting held in Ludhiana PCMA strongly feel that in the partial notification anomalies will remain and it will not serve the purpose. The President Emeritus of the Punjab Commerce and Management Association, Dr. Prem Kumar said that acceptance of MHRD Notification on Pay scales by the state government will improve the standards of the Higher Education in the state.He said that teaching is a noble profession and teachers perform a major part in the building a society.

He said that bureaucracy in Punjab should understand the status of college and university teachers and should not put any hurdles in the implementation of the MHRD pay scales in the state in total. He said any dilution in the pay scales or making partial notification will not serve any purpose. It will create worries and tensions in the minds of the teachers.

He said that National builders (Teachers) should be allowed to perform their duties free from worries about careers. Prof. Ashwani Bhalla Executive Vice President of the Association said that teachers welcome the academic standards introduced by the University Grants Commission and Ministry of Human resources development which if implemented in totality will definitely bring quality in teaching work and improve the functioning of the colleges and universities.

The Association members also appeal to the University Grants commission to release the UGC regulations for career advancement of college and university teachers at the earliest so that new academic environment in the universities and colleges may be created. Prof. Bhalla said that UGC has not given any thing extra to the teachers; it is with in the parameters of the state pay commission. If the PCS officers who are lesser in qualification than the College and University teachers can be given Pay band-4 (scale of 37400-67000) then what is the hitch to give this to the college and university teachers.

PCMA also criticized the Haryana government which has diluted the MHRD notification. He said that Punjab Commerce and Management Association fully support the agitation of the Haryana federation of College and University teachers Association (HFUCTO) and PFUCTO. PCMA members also reflect their worries about the number of court cases pending against the government of Punjab filed by the college and university teachers which has demanded their rights as given to them by the previous recommendations of the University Grants Commission.
Source : Punjab News Online

IIMs to cite govt report in pay fight

2009-08-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

The IIMs plan to cite the government’s roadmap for their expansion to demand better faculty salaries, joining the IITs in the protest against a controversial new pay regime notified by the Centre.

India’s premier B-schools are finalising a memorandum protesting the new pay structure, which they will submit to the human resource development ministry, institute sources said.

The note, currently being discussed by the directors of the seven IIMs, demands pays a notch higher than even the pay demanded by the IITs and seeks autonomy to provide additional incentives to teachers. It warns that failure to incorporate the demands can jeopardise expansion plans and attempts to fill a potentially crippling faculty shortage.

The move increases the pressure on Kapil Sibal’s ministry to review a new pay structure that the IITs and the IIMs argue fails to address their inability to attract the best brains to teaching.

The government and Sibal have repeatedly cited the 20-30 per cent faculty shortage at the IITs and the IIMs as the biggest challenge these institutes are facing.

But teachers at the institutes are arguing that the new “unsatisfactory” pay regime fails to address this concern — by neither providing recommended salaries nor offering compensatory incentives.

The new pay regime snips salaries recommended by a central panel and ignores a slew of other proposed incentives to tackle the lure of industry-level salaries.

The IIMs plan to cite the report of an HRD ministry panel under Maruti chairman R.C. Bhargava which argued that low pay placed them at a disadvantage while battling domestic and global competition for scarce faculty resources.

The Bhargava panel’s report — aimed at preparing a blueprint for the expansion of existing IIMs — had ironically been criticised by the institutes as an attempt by the government to encroach on their identity and autonomy.

By citing this, the IIMs are politely pointing out that the ministry’s own report argues for a “significant improvement” in the pay scales for their faculty.

“The IIM faculty feel that the revised pay scales notified by the ministry... do not represent any meaningful or significant improvement over the existing pay scales,” the draft memorandum says.

The new pay regime grants assistant professors a starting salary of Rs 30,000 a month, and an academic grade pay — a rank-based increment — of Rs 8,000 a month.

The IITs have demanded that — as is the case with pay for university assistant professors — the salary structure be shifted to a higher pay band after three years. Salaries in the higher band start at Rs 37,400 a month with a grade pay of Rs 9,000 a month.

The IIMs will demand in their memorandum assistant professors start at the higher pay band straight away. The IITs want this after three years. Like the IITs, the draft IIM memorandum demands a grade pay of Rs 10,000 a month for associate professors — instead of the Rs 9,500 under the newly notified regime.

The IIMs too — like the IITs — will demand that a 40 per cent cap placed under the new regime on professors entitled to a higher pay be lifted.

All professors should be given a grade pay of Rs 12,000 a month instead of the Rs 10, 500 provided under the notified regime, the IIM draft memorandum demands.

It also demands that professors after 10 years in the post be entitled to a higher salary range — starting at Rs 75, 000 a month.

Each IIM should be allowed to devise its own incentive schemes for faculty, instead of the government notification binding the institutes, the IIMs are demanding

Source : Telegraph

In festival season, Govt releases pay arrears of 17,500 cr

2009-08-27T08:08:00.000-07:00

The Finance Ministry decided to release the balance 60 per cent of revised pay arrears to all government employees. By the end of September, the government will shell out Rs 17,500 crore to its 50 lakh employees — a kind of mini stimulus before the festival season.
The arrears are part of the Sixth Pay Commission awards that were implemented with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006.

The Department of Expenditure issued a notification asking administrative ministries to release the money sanctioned to them in the Budget for 2009-10. The Department has recommended that employees retain at least a part of the arrears in their government provident fund accounts.

Pensioners too will receive their second instalment of arrears. After these payouts are made, the government will have given its employees a total of nearly Rs 30,000 crore in arrears.

Source : Indian Express

Finally, Jharkhand teachers get their due

2009-08-26T22:14:00.000-07:00

It was Jharkhand’s way of saying happy teachers’ day.

The governor’s advisory council today approved Rs 156 crore so that thousands of university, college and school teachers can be paid salaries according to the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, thereby setting the tone for a memorable September 5.

The amount includes Rs 52.28 crore to cater to college and university teachers with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006 to March 31, 2010, apart from paying teachers of government-aided minority-run middle, primary schools and madarsas.

While Rs 85.13 crore was set aside for teachers of government-aided schools, Rs 18 crore was to take care of madarsa teachers.

Teachers of minority-run schools, who have been urging the state for central government payscales for quite sometime, will now receive revised salaries with effect from April 1, 2008.

For paying university and college teachers as per the Sixth Pay Commission from January 1, 2006, the state would actually require Rs 261.62 crore, 80 per cent of which would be borne by the Centre. Today, the state cleared its share of the remaining 20 per cent, or Rs 52.28 crore.

Today’s order benefits around 4,000 university and college teachers of the state and another 15,000 teachers of religious minority-run schools.

The council meeting, chaired by G. Krishnan, also showered goodies for educated youth among primitive tribes.

It approved the welfare department’s proposal to directly recruit Class VIII pass primitive tribe students in Grade IV jobs and intermediate pass students with computer training as computer operators in government offices.

Till now, the provision was limited to matriculate and graduates among primitive tribes.

“Class VIII pass primitive tribe students will be appointed in Grade IV jobs in the offices of the district headquarters,” explained P.K. Jajoria, the secretary, cabinet coordination. He said students who had completed vocational courses in computer applications offered by the welfare department through Xavier Institute of Social Service, would be appointed as computer operators in district headquarters.

Federation of University Teachers’ Association, Jharkhand, president Babban Choubey said the advisory council’s decision to give benefit of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations was a big achievement. “We expect the state to ensure solution to all our long-pending demands,” Choubey added.

The advisory council also approved 17 other proposals:

nRs 16.76 crore for constructing buildings for five industrial training institutes (ITIs) in Bahragora and Chakulia (East Singbhum), Chandwa and Mahuatarn (Latehar), and Ghaghra (Gumla)

nRs 77.27 crore as “resource gap” support for Jharkhand State Electricity Board

nRs 17.36 lakh for buying vehicles for new members of Jharkhand Public Service Commission

nRs 5.7 crore for constructing Simdega civil court building

Source : Telegraph

Maharashtra Teachers end strike, win on 6th pay panel, lose on NET

2009-08-26T22:10:00.001-07:00

The 45-day teachers' strike that began on July 14 over several issues, prime among them being the implementation of the Sixth Pay
Commission, was called off late on Wednesday. The decision was announced at a late-night press conference on Wednesday jointlSTRIKE.TIMy the state higher education minister Rajesh Tope and members of the Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers Organisation. Classes in colleges and university will resume on Thursday.

Besides implementation of the Sixth Pay Commmision scales, teachers had also wanted the UGC pay package to be implemented in its entirety, and parity for teachers appointed between 1991-99 without a NET/SLET qualification.

However, the education minister said that while the Sixth Pay Commission salaries would be implemented and dearness allowance would be paid as per UGC scales, other allowances such as travel would be similar to state government employees. But certain benefits that the teachers avail of, which are on par with central government employees and are higher than what state government employees receive, will remain the same.

But on the NET/SLET issue, teachers' demands have not been met. The state government has refused to waive aside the NET/SLET qualification for teachers

appointed between 1991-99. Tope observed that according to three or four high court decisions, this demand was not consistent with the law. However, he added that a four-member committee will be formed that will comprise two representatives from the government and two from the teachers' union. This panel will take up individual cases of teachers appointed between 1991-99 who do not have the NET/SLET qualification, before the state government.

As a result of the strike 35 working days have been lost. Teachers will now have to make up for the lost time during their vacations and if they manage to do so they will not lose out on their salary. However, principals of colleges will have to give it in writing to the university that teachers have completed their portions.

The minister also said that a circular sent on August 24 from the education department to the university asking it to initiate action against the striking teachers will no longer be valid now that the strike has been called off.

Office Order for payment of Second installment of arrears (60% arrears) Dated 25.08.2009

2009-08-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

Subject : Regarding the Payment of Second installment of arrears on account of implementation of Sixth Central Pay Commission's recommendation(Dated 25th August 2009)

It is Good News for Central Government Employees. The Second installment of arrears (60% arears) on account of implementation of Sixth Central Pay Commission's recommendation will be paid now. The order has been published by finance ministry. To view the official order , Please follow the link.

Order for 60% arears

Revise pay scale or face strike: IIT faculty

2009-08-24T23:05:00.000-07:00

In a symbolic and politically astute move, the IIT faculty has given an ultimatum to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) to revise the notification on the Sixth Pay Commission, by September fourth, one day before Teacher’s Day. If MHRD does not heed to their demands, the faculty associations of India’s premier science and technology teachers, have decided to meet at IIT Delhi on September 5 to plan strikes across the country.

IIT faculty have not accepted the MHRD’s notification for changes in their pay scale. Instead, they are demanding that the higher salary scale suggested by the government-appointed Govardhan Mehta Committee be implemented.

Monday saw professors from IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee take mass casual leave to protest the pay notification. Faculty members of IIT Delhi, wore black black badges, and will take mass casual leave on Friday.

However, no more protests are expected till September 5.

On Monday evening, the All India IIT Faculty Federation presented a memorandum to MHRD Minister Kapil Sibal seeking that the notification on the Sixth Pay Commission, be revised.

Speaking to Express, All India IIT Faculty Federation president Sunil Pandey said that the association would present the memorandum to Prime Minister and President on Tuesday.

The pay notification was the topic of discussion at the Joint Admission Board meeting on Sunday at IIT Madras, where the directors of seven IITs were present to discuss IIT-JEE, 2010.

The IIT Madras Faculty Association made a presentation on the demands of faculty members and a memorandum was given to MHRD Additional Secretary Ashok Thakur.

KEY DEMANDS

Issue MHRD IIT faculty

notification demand

Lecturer post contract basis Abolish post,

move to Asst Prof

Asst Prof At PB-3 After 3 years, PB-4

(AGP: Rs 8000) (AGP: Rs 9000)

Assoc Prof AGP: Rs 9,500 AGP: Rs 10,000

Prof AGP: Rs 10,500 AGP: Rs 11,000

Professional

Development Rs 3 lakh Rs 5 lakh

Assistance

(3 years)

Source : Expressbuzz

Teacher’s Day deadline on IIT salary - Threat of mass hunger strike if government does not act by September 5

2009-08-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Faculty across the IITs are threatening to go on mass hunger strike in an unprecedented showdown with the government unless it revises a new pay regime to address teachers’ concerns within 12 days.

In a memorandum submitted to the human resource development ministry today, the All India IIT Faculty Federation, a body elected by teachers at the institutes, has given a deadline — September 5 — by when the government must withdraw the new pay regime it has notified, and replace it with a structure incorporating their demands.

The demands were placed before the ministry on a day IIM Calcutta became the first among the B-schools to officially register its protest against the new pay structure.

As reported first in The Telegraph on August 19, the new pay regime approved for teachers at the IITs and the IIMs by the cabinet snips effective salaries recommended by a central pay panel.

The new pay structure also omits other key incentives recommended by the panel under former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta to help battle the lure of better salaries from industry and foreign institutions.

Senior faculty members across the IITs for the past five days have been protesting the new pay regime, arguing that it varies with the government’s stated commitment to attract young teachers.

The IITs and the IIMs suffer from a faculty shortage between 20 and 30 per cent.

Teachers at IIT Madras, Bombay and Kharagpur boycotted classes — this has never happened before.

They will all return to classes tomorrow but have threatened to resume their protest if the government does not accept their demands.

The memorandum places a long list of demands that the faculty want the government to comply with. Some of these demands were cited by the faculty as the most important — which if not accepted, could prolong and intensify a protest already unparalleled in the five-decade history of the IITs. (See chart).

New pay scales notified by the UGC for assistant professors in universities boost their salaries into a higher pay range after three years of teaching. But the notified new regime for IITs and IIMs does not thrust assistant professor salaries to a higher pay range though faculty in these institutes start at a higher salary.

A university assistant professor could be earning more than an IIT or IIM assistant professor after teaching for three years — a situation unpalatable for faculty at the more-in-demand institutes.

The memorandum demands that assistant professors at the IITs should also be shifted to the higher pay band after three years.

The IIT faculty have also demanded a higher academic grade pay — a rank-based increment — for associate professors, as it will additionally entitle them to benefits allowed only to those above a certain salary.

The notified pay regime places a 40 per cent limit on the number of professors in each institute, who would be eligible for a higher grade pay.

The faculty have argued that the cap on higher-pay professorial posts will trigger bickering among professors for the higher pay and could lead to nepotism. The cap could also frustrate younger professors unable to move into the higher pay bracket because seniors have filled the 40 per cent quota.

Source :Times of India

Centre nod to revised salaries for tech institutes

2009-08-24T09:21:00.000-07:00

Conceding to the demands of faculty at various Centrally funded technical institutions, who recently observed a nationwide strike, the Human Resource Development Ministry
has issued circulars to all centers of National Institute of Technology (NITs), Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIITs), IITs and IIMs regarding the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission.

The faculty and staff of nine IITs, eight IIMs, 23 NITs and three IIITs across the country will now get the benefits of the pay commission.

The ministry has implemented the recommendations of the Goverdhan Committee constituted for revising the pay-scales of Centrally funded technical institutions. A letter to this effect reached at the MNNIT and IIIT Allahabad on Friday.

The monetary benefit to teaching staff will be made applicable retrospectively from January 1, 2006, while for non-teaching staff the revised norms will come into effect from September 1, 2008.

Welcoming the parity in salary of NIT directors with the V-Cs of Central universities and the revised payscale, MNNIT Director Prof Arun Baran Samaddar said much more could have been done for the welfare of teaching and other staff of the institutions.

After the pay revision, an assistant professor with PhD and regular service of three years at Annual Grade Pay (AGP) of Rs 6,000 pm will gte Rs 7,000 pm, while the one at the AGP of Rs 7,000 pm will get Rs 8,000 pm.

Similarly assistant professor with a PhD and regular service of three years at the AGP of Rs 8,000 pm will be designated as associate professor and get Rs 9,000 pm. Associate professors at the IIITs and NITs with four years of regular service in the AGP of Rs 9,000 and possessing a PhD degree

will be appointed as professors, subject to other UGC conditions.

No teacher other than those with a PhD shall be promoted, appointed or designated as Professor.

The pay band for professors will be Rs 37,400-67,000 with AGP of Rs l0,000 pm.

source : express india

J&K Cabinet meets today for Budget Proposals, 6th Pay Panel On Agenda

2009-08-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

The state cabinet, which is expected to meet here Monday evening with the chief minister, Omar Abdullah, in chair, is expected to deliberate on some major proposals announced by the finance minister, Abdul Rahim Rather, during his budget speech on August 10.
Well placed sources told Greater Kashmir that the regularization of the ad-hoc and contractual appointees, increase in the Dearness Allowance, Temporary Move Allowance and wages of daily-rated laborers, were among the issues on the agenda for consideration by the cabinet.
“The discussions will largely revolve round the announcements made by the finance minister in his budget speech and the meeting is expected to take some decisions in this regard,” they said.
In his budget speech, Rather had proposed the regularization of ad-hoc and consolidated appointees who had completed seven years of service.
“The cabinet will discuss all the nitty-gritty involved in the implementation of the decisions. It is also likely to discuss the regularization of the contractual appointees following demands by the members of the House for the same,” sources said.
The increase in the Dearness Allowances by six per cent from January this year and Rs 100 hike in the Temporary Move Allowance proposed by the finance minister would be ‘thoroughly’ discussed by the cabinet besides an increase in the wages of the daily wagers, sources said.
Sources said the implementation of the 6th pay panel report recommendations to the resident doctors of the SK Institute of Medical Science, Soura, here was on the agenda of the meeting.
The doctors had gone on an indefinite strike earlier this month demanding that the recommendations of the 6th pay commission should be implemented in their case as well. However, they had later called off the strike following assurance by the government that a decision would be taken in a month or so on the issue.
The amendment in the Immoveable Property Act would also be on the agenda, sources said.
The cabinet may also consider, and accept, the fresh recommendations made by its sub committee in the aftermath of its recent meeting with the Joint Consultative Committee of the employees associations, regarding the implement of the 6th pay commission and several other issues.
The meeting, which would start at 6 pm, is understood to announce some minor reshuffle in civil administration as well.

Source : Greater Kashmir

Govt to review IIT faculty pay

2009-08-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

With faculty from across the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) calling off lectures and threatening dire consequences like
mass resignation, the Centre has sat up and promised to revisit the pay structure it formulated for IIT teachers.

On Friday, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said his officials would take a look at the salary offered to faculty and rework the pay structure if need be.

Sibal said the problem was that though at the entry level, IIT teachers get more salary, selection for the next promotion, unlike the UGC system where it is automatic, results in disparity. “We will look into it,” he said.
On their part, IIT professors continued their protest.

At IITMadras, faculty stayed away from classes on Friday and IIT-Bombay teachers refused to conduct lectures on Monday. The Union government recently announced pay scales for faculty at centrally-funded technical institutes but declared a salary structure lower than what was recommended by the Govardhan Mehta Committee, set up to decide pay scales for staff at central institutes.

“The pay scales are almost as much as the UGC scales. For us, equal measure is laid on our academic duties and research work. The government has not taken the hard work we put in into consideration,” said Soumyo Mukherji, secretary of the faculty forum at IIT-B.

For instance, whether a professor is employed in a state university or at the IITs, he/she is place in pay band 4, which ranges from Rs 37,400 to Rs 67,000, the only difference being that of the academic grade pay (AGP), on lines with grade pay for government employees.

While AGP for state university professors recommended by the UGC stands at Rs 10,000, the same is Rs 10,500 for those in IIT. “We are competing against American universities to attract talent. With such pay scales, we cannot expect any top rate teacher to join the IITs,” said S Bhat, president of the faculty forum.

The IITs had demanded that faculty members be given an incentive for research as well as for upgrading their professional skills, but the final announcement omitted all these recommendations.

Source : Economics Times

Revised pay for PCMC staff

2009-08-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Around 8,500 civic employees and officials of the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation will get revised salaries as per recommendations of
the Sixth Pay Commission from next month onwards. The decision was approved by PCMC commissioner Ashish Sharma on Thursday.

Baban Zinjurde, president, Pimpri-Chinchwad Mahanagarpalika Karmachari Mahasangh (PCMKM) said the PCMC standing committee and the general body had already approved the proposal. The proposal had also been sent to the state government for approval.

Source : Times of India

Revised Pay Scales of Haryana College, Varsity Teachers | Notification from Haryana Govt.

2009-08-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

Haryana Finance Department has issued notification for the revision of structure of pay for the employees in the category of teachers and equivalent cadres in university and colleges in Haryana. The notification has been issued on August 20, 2009.

According to the notification, the arrears of pay would be paid in two installments. The first installment would be restricted to 40 per cent of the total entitled arrears of the employees becoming due within the period from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2008 and would be paid in cash. The entitled amount of the said first installment would be worked out separately after fixing the pay in the revised structure and drawing and disbursing the same in terms of the revised structure anytime after September 1, 2009. Orders for the mode of payment of the balance of the entitled arrears of the employee as second installment would be issued separately.

In case of promotion from one post to another in the revised pay structure the fixation would be done as one increment equal to three per cent of the pay in the pay band and the existing grade pay would be computed and rounded off to the next multiple of 10. This would be added to the existing pay in the pay band. The grade pay corresponding to the promotion post would thereafter be granted in addition to this pay in the pay band. In cases where promotion involves change in the pay in the pay band after adding the increment is less than the minimum of the higher pay band to which promotion is taking place, pay in the pay band will be stepped to such minimum.

The revised structure of pay for these employees is as such:-

Sr. No. Name of Post / Cadre Existing Scale (in Rs.) Modification
designation Revised ACP Pay structure
Pay Band (in Rs.) Pay Band Code Grand Pay (in Rs.)

TEACHING FACULTY

1. Lecturers 8000 – 13500 (Entry Level Scale) No Change 15600-39100
(Entry Level Scale) PB – 3 6000

2. Lecturers (Sr. Scale) 10000 – 15200 No Change 15600-39100 PB – 3 7000

3. Lecturers (Selection Grade) 12000 – 18300 No Change 15600-39100 PB – 3 8000

4. Reader 12000 - 18300 No Change 15600-39100 PB – 3 8000

5. College Principle 16400 – 22400 No Change 37400 – 67000 PB – 4 10000

6. Professor 16400 – 22400 No Change 37400 - 67000 PB –
4 10000
Administrative Faculty

7. Asstt. Registrar / Asstt. Controller of Examination 8000 –
13500 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 5400

8. Dy. Registrar / Dy. Finance Officer / Dy. Controller of
Examination 12000 – 18300 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 8000

9. Registrar 16400 – 22400 No Change 37400 – 67000 PB – 4 10000
Library Faculty

10. Asstt. Librarian / College Librarian 8000 – 13500 No Change 15600
- 39100 PB – 3 6000

11. Asstt. Librarian (Sr. Scale) / College Librarian (Sr.
Scale) 10000 – 15200 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 7000

12. Dy. Librarian / Asstt. Librarian (Selection Grade) / College
Librarian (Selection Grade) 12000 – 18300 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB
-3 8000

13. Librarian (University) 16400 – 22400 No Change 37400 – 67000 PB – 4 10000
Physical Education Faculty

14. Asstt. Director of Physical Education / College Director of
Physical Education 8000- 13500 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 6000

15. Asstt. Director of Physical Education (Sr. Scale) / College
Director of Physical Education (Sr. Scale) 10000 – 15200 No
Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 7000

16. Dy. Director of Physical Education / Asstt. Director of Physical
Education (Selection Grade) / College Director of Physical Education
(Selection Grade) 12000 – 18300 No Change 15600 – 39100 PB – 3 8000

17. Director of Physical Education (Univeristy) 16400 – 22400 No
Change 37400 – 67000 PB – 4 10000
Apex Faculty

18. Pro-Vice Chancellor 18400 – 22400 No Change 37400 – 67000 PB – 4 12000

19. Vice Chancellor 25000 (Fixed) No Change 75000 (Fixed)

Section II
(See Rules 8)

Entry pay in the revised pay structure for direct recruits appointed
on or after 1.1.2006 for employees belonging to the category of
teachers and equivalent cadres in Universities and Colleges.

Grade Pay
PB – 3 (Rs. 15600 - 39100)

Grade Pay Pay in the Pay Band Total
6000 15600 21600
8000 15600 23600

Grade Pay
PB – 4(Rs. 37400 - 67000)

Grade Pay Pay in the Pay Band Total
10000 37400 47400

Source : PunjabOnline

IIT Madras faculty to return to classes

2009-08-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

Faculty members of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Madras), who had on Friday boycotted classes expressing displeasure over the
anomalies in the central government's revised pay scale notification, have decided to return to classes from Monday.

The IIT Madras Faculty Association (IMFA) decided to temporarily suspend the agitation on a request from the institute deputy director V G Idichandy, who is officiating as director-in-charge since the incumbent M S Ananth is on leave. However, the faculty members would continue to sport black badges as an expression of protest to the union human resources development ministry's notification, while attending to their duty.

"We did not take classes on Friday. But our director-in-charge appealed to us to wait for some time and assured that the directors of all IITs who are meeting in Chennai on Sunday would take up our case with the IIT standing council and the central government. We have been asked to make a presentation on the anomalies in the revised pay scales notified by the government. Heeding to this assurance, we have decided to handle classes from Monday," IMFA president M Thenmozhi told The Times of India on Friday.

The revised pay scales were notified by the union human resources development ministry on Tuesday last based on the recommendations contained in a report submitted by professor Goverdhan Mehta, the former director of the Indian Institute of Science. However, faculty members across IITs in the country were upset over the revised pay scales since the pay bands fixed for them were far lower than those announced by the University Grants Commission (UGC) for teachers of arts and science universities and colleges.

Faculty members hope that the ministry would examine their representation and come up with a "dignified revised pay scales."

Source :Times of India

Minister ready to lend ear to IIT, IIM faculty , Sibal hints at pay relook

2009-08-22T08:15:00.000-07:00

The government is willing to address concerns raised by IIT and IIM faculty over a controversial new pay regime opposed by teachers at the premier institutions, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said today.

“I am certainly willing to listen to their concerns. I may call a meeting with my officials to consider any problems (with the new pay scales),” Sibal said, in response to a question at a news briefing.

His statement came on a day when teachers at IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras stayed away from classes in protest against the new pay regime that they said was “disrespectful”.

The IITs are expected to collectively submit a memorandum to Sibal through their directors, who are expected to discuss the concerns raised by their faculty at a meeting in Chennai on Sunday.

As reported first in The Telegraph — on August 19 and 20 — the new pay scales cleared by the cabinet snipped annual increments proposed by a central panel set up to revise salaries.

The new pay regime also ignores a slew of incentives proposed by the central panel under former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta to attract fresh teachers and retain the best faculty at the institutes.

The IITs and the IIMs face a faculty shortage of between 20 and 30 per cent, many of their best teachers lured away by better salary offers in industry or foreign education institutions.

Sibal, his predecessor Arjun Singh, and several other government officials have repeatedly dubbed the faculty shortage a major problem plaguing these institutes

Source : Telegraph

Maharashtra Teachers' stir: Decision likely next week

2009-08-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

The state government and protesting teachers met on Friday and decided to carry on the talks again on Monday.

"Our talks have been positive. But the strike continues,'' said Madhu Paranjpe of the Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisations (MFUCTO).

The strike started on July 14. There is a likelihood that a final decision on whether to continue the strike or get back to class would be taken in the coming week, MFUCTO member Rohini Sivabalan said.

The state and teachers have locked horns over several issues, including the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission pay scales in toto and the unfair treatment meted out to those hired between 1991 and 2000 who have not cleared the NET/SLET examination (an entry-level qualification that was not mandatory at the time).

Wages according to sixtha pay commission for senior medical teachers

2009-08-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

The government on Thursday assured senior medical teachers that they would get revised wages in accordance with the UGC's recommendation for
the Sixth Pay Commission.

About 250 medical teachers, belonging to the Sir JJ Group of Hospitals, took a mass casual leave on Thursday to protest against the non-implementation of the UGC recommendation. "We met finance minister Jayant Patil who assured us that our demands would be met at the earliest,'' said Dr Bharti Kodvilkar, spokesperson for the Maharashtra Medical Teachers Association. Though senior medical teachers kept away from work for the day, they were available for emergency duty. "Resident doctors took care of the rest of the work,'' she said.

A senior official of the department of medical education and research, however, said though the government was ready to grant the doctors' demands, it was trying to work out a joint plan for all teachers, especially those in other universities. "Once the common formula is worked out, we will make an announcement,'' said the official.

At JJ Hospital in Byculla, about 50 major surgeries were rescheduled because of the "strike'', said dean Dr S Inamdar. "The casual leave affected us to some extent but our medical officers and resident doctors managed the day,'' he added.

For 55-year-old Kalyan resident U Panjan, the doctors' strike came at a bad time. "I was admitted to St George's Hospital a week ago after a heart attack and the doctors sent me to JJ Hospital on Thursday to get an angiography done. However, they told me nothing could be done today,'' he said. He, along with his brother, came to JJ Hospital early in the day. "We first spent four hours getting the paperwork done only to be told to come back on Friday,'' said his brother.

Source : Times of India

Maharashtra Teachers' strike: Talks inconclusive

2009-08-21T01:13:00.000-07:00

Talks between striking college and university teachers and the state government ended in a stalemate on Thursday, the 38th day of the
statewide strike, even as IIT-Bombay faculty decided not to take classes on Monday to protest against the new pay scales declared for staff at central technical institutions.

The Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisations (MFUCTO) met chief minister Ashok Chavan on Thursday but, as the talks reached a stalemate, it was decided that the discussions would continue on Friday. A final decision on the strike would be taken on Friday, MFUCTO president C R Sadashivan said. "We will continue our discussion and call off the strike only if the MFUCTO is satisfied with the government's stand,'' he added.

IIT-B Faculty Forum president B Seth, too, sounded a warning on Thursday, saying the new salary structure was "absolutely unacceptable''. "Further course of action, like resignation from all administrative posts, will be decided in consultation with other IITs. That may impact the mentoring of new IITs and faculty participation in scientific honorary activities of various government bodies,'' Seth added.

Each IIT has planned protests on campus. IIT-Madras faculty held a protest meet on Thursday and IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee teachers would not take lectures on Friday, IIT-B Faculty Federation secretary Soumyo Mukherji said.

Source : Times of India

IIT-M faculty to boycott classes from tomorrow

2009-08-21T01:09:00.000-07:00

Aggrieved by differential pay scales and non-implementation of Sixth Central Pay Commission recommendations, the faculty of the IIT Madras will boycott classes indefinitely from tomorrow.

"We have decided to stop taking classes from tomorrow as our earlier protests of taking classes wearing black badges had not paid off," M Thenmozhi, President, IIT-M Faculty Association, told PTI here today.

She claimed the faculty at IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Rourkee will also go into protest mode with the former expected to go on "mass casual leave" tomorrow and keeping off mentoring activities.

Thenmozhi said the scales of pay were not "as expected" and an Assistant Professor in the institution was drawing lesser than their counterpart in an Arts and Science college.

"We have been forced to think it would be better to work in other colleges," she said.

Source : PTI News

Classes off at IIT in pay ire

2009-08-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

The IIT Madras faculty today declared they would stop taking classes indefinitely from tomorrow in protest over a new pay regime that teachers across the IITs and IIMs have dubbed “disrespectfully” inadequate.

The IIT Madras faculty association’s decision is unprecedented in the history of the IITs and it means there will be no classes at the institute till the protest ends.

The faculty association also resolved to stop mentoring the new IIT at Hyderabad, a task that had been assigned to IIT Madras.

IIT Kharagpur teachers are also going on mass casual leave tomorrow. They will not take classes or perform administrative tasks. However, they will return to work on Monday.

Till late this evening, the authorities at the Madras and Kharagpur IITs were trying to convince angry teachers to come to work tomorrow, but the faculty refused to bow down.

The faculty associations of the other IITs are also scheduled to meet over the next two days to finalise their protest strategy.

The IIMs at present have not declared how they plan to protest the new pay regime.

The directors of all IITs are scheduled to meet in Chennai on Sunday, when they will discuss how to raise the concerns expressed by their faculty with the Union human resource development ministry.

As reported by The Telegraph on August 19, the new pay regime for teachers at these premier institutions snips increments recommended by a central pay panel under former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta.

The new regime approved by the cabinet earlier this month — but kept under wraps till it was notified yesterday — also cuts back on a slew of incentives suggested by the Mehta panel.

Source : Telegraph

MCD sanitation employees demand release of pay panel arrears

2009-08-20T08:19:00.001-07:00

The sanitation employees of MCD today demanded the release of the first installment of arrears payable to them after the civic body implemented the recommendations of the sixth pay commission.

The Sanitation Employees Welfare Association said its members will stage a demonstration at the MCD headquarters on August 28 in support of their demand.

The first installment of 40 per cent of the arrears was paid only to class IV employees while the rest were yet to receive it. The payment was to be released in the last financial year, the association's General Secretary K K Lohat said.

Source : PTI

J& K Govt Has Accepted All Demands: JCC

2009-08-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

The Joint Consultative Committee (JCC), an alliance of state employees’ unions, today said that the government had accepted all its demands and given written guarantees of meeting them within a specific time frame.
The government had asked the JCC until October, when the 13th Finance Commission report is likely to come out, for releasing the amounts due to the employees, it said.
Addressing a press conference at the Exhibition Grounds, the heads of the two factions of the Employees Joint Action Committee, Abdul Qayoom Wani and Khrusheed Aalam, said that the meeting between the cabinet sub-committee and the JCC last evening had been successful, and that the government had conceded that it had not fully implemented the 6th Pay Commission recommendations yet.
“I have the pleasure of announcing that the government has accepted the demands of the employees as genuine, and agreed to accept them in principle,” Aalam said.
He said that the JCC and the cabinet sub-committee had arrived at a written agreement specifying a time frame to fulfill employees demands, and that a written guarantee had been obtained from the government.
“A major demand of the employees had been implementing certain recommendations of the Pay Panel report that had been sidelined,” he said.
“There had been a pay disparity for employees appointed after 2006 which was putting them at a loss, but the government has agreed to
bring them within the purview of the recommendations as well,” he said, adding that the disparity would be removed within ten days.
“The government has also given a written undertaking to convert the Cost Of Living Allowance (COLA) of public sector employees into Dearness Allowance, and issue orders to this effect within two months,” he said.
He said that the cabinet sub-committee had also agreed in principle to increase the retirement age of employees, and would be putting up a note for the cabinet soon.
“The government said that it required six months as it needed resources to meet the employees’ demands, and since the 13 Finance Commission report would be out in October, the process of releasing funds would begin,” he said.

Source : Kashmirobserver

Maharashtra Teachers protest govt order on pay panel

2009-08-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

The Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisations (MFUCTO) has said the teachers on strike will not accept the recent government resolution (GR) on the Sixth Pay Commission issued prior to a crucial meeting on Thursday.

MFUCTO will hold a meeting with chief minister Ashok Chavan and higher education minister Rajesh Tope on Thursday, as the teachers' strike enters its 38th day.

MFUCTO president CR Sadasivan said: "MFUCTO is shocked to know that the higher and technical education department has gone ahead with the issuance of the GR even when negotiations with the chief minister have been going on. It could have waited for a few days till the meeting so that any understanding reached could have been incorporated.

"A clause says the GR is subject to the decision taken by the state on the scheme forwarded by government of India by its letter dated 31/12/2008. Unfortunately, these decisions are not within public knowledge."

He said important items such as the retirement age, pension, gratuity, leave and children's education were blank in the GR. He also pointed out that the GR says the state will pay the arrears after money comes from the Centre.

"The Central government and the UGC issued orders asking states to pay 40% of the arrears before March 31, 2009 and claim money in last financial year. They also said if extra payment is made, there is provision for recovery. Hence, the GR indicates that the state is not planning to pay arrears now," said Sadasivan.

Source : dnaindia

BSNL Strike | More staff join strike, BSNL says no talks

2009-08-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

The indefinite strike by more than 10,000 BSNL engineers received a major boost on Wednesday, as over 2 lakh non-executive employees of
the telecom firm joined them in boycotting work demanding early wage revision.

Even as the strike by the engineers entered its second day on Wednesday, the telco’s management refused to hold talks with any of the employee associations representing both engineers or non-executive employees. When contacted by ET, the management said the PSU had already taken steps to address the issues raised by the unions and added the latter chose to go on strike despite these measures.

Rejecting the claims of the unions, BSNL said services had not been affected due to the strike: “BSNL has made adequate arrangement to ensure that telecom services rendered to our esteemed customers remain uninterrupted. A control room has been set up in BSNL Corporate Office, New Delhi and similar control rooms are functioning at state and district levels to constantly monitor the situation,” the company said in a statement.

The BSNL management also dismissed the claims of the employee unions that over two lakh non-executive employees and joined the strike: “BSNL has about 2,45,000 non-executive employees, and the union on agitation has about 50% membership,” the company said. The telco added out of about 55,000 executives of BSNL, only about 2,400 were unauthorisedly absent from their duties since August 18, 2009.

On the contentious issue of wage revision, the telco said the process was done in all PSUs through negotiation with employees’ unions as per government guidelines.

“The process of wage revision in BSNL is already in progress. So far, wage revision has been completed in none of the other PSUs, except one. As such BSNL is not lagging behind on this issue,” the telco added.

However, the unions have refused to budge: “The adamant and negative stand of the management in denying our just demands has compelled the workers to go on strike. While we regret for the inconvenience caused to the people, the strike is only due to the unhelpful attitude of the management,” explained VAN Namboodri, general secretary, BSNL Employees Union and convenor of United Front.

Mr Namboodri alleged while salaries of ITS officers and other executives have been hiked with effect from January 1, 2006 and January 1, 2007, respectively, the wage revision of more than two lakh non-executive employees are still not settled even after 2.5 years.

“The promotion policy has been implemented for executives, but the same is not implemented for non-executives even though an agreement has been signed last year. Despite clear government orders, the wages of contract workers are not fixed. BSNL retirees are denied their due pensionary benefits,” he added.

Source : Economics times

36 days on, teachers still battle for dues

2009-08-18T22:40:00.000-07:00

With the strike by 30,000 teachers from 10 universities and over 2,000 colleges across the state entering its 36th day, it became possibly
the longest teachers' strike in the history of Maharashtra.

"A decade ago, the all-India teachers' strike for the implementation of UGC pay scales lasted around 25 days, from mid-August to September 5. Twenty years ago, the strike that held the record for being the longest in the state was for 32 days, between December 1988 and January 1989,'' Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisations (MFUCTO) president C R Sadasivan said.

College and university teachers are protesting the fact that Maharashtra has not yet implemented Sixth Pay Commission scales for them. Teachers want the government to implement the composite pay package prescribed by the University Grants Commission. They also want an end to the discrimination meted out to teachers appointed between 1991-99 who did not clear the NET/SLET examination, an entry-level qualification that was not mandatory at the time.

Talks between the state higher education minister Rajesh Tope and the striking teachers fell through after discussions that lasted 26 hours over a period of seven days. Teachers then requested the chief minister to intervene in the matter. The CM met a delegation of teachers on Sunday afternoon for around half-an-hour. "The CM understood our demands,'' said Sadasivan. On Tuesday, teachers received a message from the government, inviting them for a further round of talks in Mantralaya at 1 pm on Thursday.

Colleges and universities will have a tough time making up for the lectures lost. The strike has lasted 36 days (including five Sundays) and they will have to utilise a portion of the three-week-long Diwali vacation as well as the week-long Christmas holidays in addition to the 30-odd Sundays left in the academic year.

Source : Times of India

Pay punch to IIMs and IITs - Govt-approved increments less than what panel had recommended

2009-08-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

The Centre has snipped the annual increments recommended for teachers at the IITs and IIMs under a new pay regime, shuffling existing hierarchies in a move that could trigger a protracted protest from faculty members.

The revised annual increments approved by the cabinet on August 7 for faculty at India’s apex technical education institutions are lower than those proposed by a central review panel, The Telegraph has learnt.

The new salaries proposed by the central review team headed by former Indian Institute of Science director Goverdhan Mehta were already lower than what the institutes had demanded to tackle a crippling faculty shortage.

But the pay regime approved by the cabinet — based on finetuning of the Goverdhan Mehta report by an inter-ministerial committee — further reduced the financial benefits proposed for teachers.

In absolute terms, the new pay regime hikes starting salaries at each teaching post for the IITs and IIMs by around 150 per cent. But the salaries were last set in 1999 and teachers are unlikely to accept the new hierarchies the new regime creates.

As a sense of the new pay regime started drifting in on IIT and IIM campuses today, faculty associations met to prepare strategies to protest what they argue is “disrespect” to their service.

Senior faculty members told this newspaper that they may try to meet HRD minister Kapil Sibal in a bid to convince him to take a fresh look at the pay structure before it is notified. The ministry is likely to issue the notification of the new pay regime around August 20.

“If this is what the cabinet has approved, the government is effectively saying that they do not care about retaining the best faculty at the IITs and IIMs,” the head of the faculty association of one of the IITs said.

The new regime hits the National Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology and the Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad ever harder.

The NITs had demanded pay parity with the IITs, IIITs and ISM — where salaries are already higher than those of university teachers because of the greater market demand for teachers of technical courses. Instead, the NITs will receive the pay prescribed by the University Grants Commission for varsity teachers.

Existing faculty at IIITs and the ISM Dhanbad will continue to receive salaries on a par with the IITs and IIMs under the new regime. New teachers at these institutions will, however, receive salaries similar to UGC scales.

The Telegraph had reported on August 8 that the IIITs and ISM Dhanbad were to lose their current pay parity with the IITs and IIMs under the new regime.

But the new regime also alters existing pay hierarchies within the IITs and IIMs. At present, assistant professors receive salaries on a par with deputy registrars at these institutes while associate professors receive salaries on a par with registrars.

But under the new regime, assistant professors will receive lower pay than deputy registrars and associate professors less than registrars in a shuffle that one IIM professor described as “outrageously unfair”.

“Assistant professors and associate professors need to hold PhDs with first class scores in their research evaluation, apart from teaching experience. These are significantly higher qualifications than those required for administrative jobs,” the professor complained.

The IIMs had demanded that their directors receive a fixed salary of Rs 90,000 a month. The new regime doles out Rs 80,000 a month for directors at the IITs, IIMs, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, IISc in Bangalore and the National Institute of Industrial Engineering.

Directors at the NITs, IIITs and ISM Dhanbad will receive Rs 75,000 a month, along with a special allowance of Rs 5,000 -- a salary on a par with university vice-chancellors. The special allowance is not considered while calculating benefits like the dearness allowance.
Source : Telegraph