Mumbai: Ahead of the New Year and 2019 general polls, the State government accepted the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission for its lakhs of employees.
The Maharashtra government on Thursday approved the recommendations of the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission, giving a salary hike to its over 20 lakh employees and pensioners. The hike will be effective from January 1, 2019.
The approval to the pay hike of government employees from January 1 was given by the Cabinet at its meeting here and it comes just months ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The state will face assembly polls in the second half of 2019.
Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, addressing reporters at the secretariat, said the decision will benefit 20,50,000 government employees, including those working in Zilla Parishads (ZPs), aided schools and also pensioners, reported PTI.
The arrears as per the seventh pay commission will be given to employees with retrospective effect from January 2016 while the dearness allowance will be paid retrospectively for the last 14 months, said Mungantiwar.
Mungantiwar further said that the decision will put an additional burden of Rs 38,645 crore on the state exchequer.
"The arrears will be paid in equal installments over five years. Each year the government will spend Rs 7,631 on implementation of the 7th Pay Commission," PTI quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, the Central government employees wait for the hike in their minimum pay by the Narendra Modi government before the 2019 general elections.