After Shiv Gopal Mishra, the Chief of National Joint Council of Action (NJCA), mentioned in his Facebook post that Home Minister Rajnath Singh was serious about the minimum pay hike issue of the Central government employees and called for a meeting on February 8, it was expected that a decision would be taken soon.
However, it seems the CG employees' wait is going to be longer as no such concrete decision was taken to hike the minimum pay beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.
Following the meeting on February 8, Mishra, in another post, said that the minimum pay hike issue was raised during the meeting and Rajnath Singh assured that he would take up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He also informed, through the same post, that a dharna will be held on February 21 at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to put pressure on the Modi government to make an early announcement in this regard.
In the meeting, concerns were expressed that resentment among the employees is brewing and the big employee mass is not happy with the Modi government. So to avoid a faceoff, there is the need to make a decision in this regard soon.
Besides, as not much time is left for the government to make a decision with the 2019 elections barely two months away, all eyes are now on the next course of action of the Modi government over the matter.
Moreover, following the meeting of NJCA with the Home Minister, speculations are rife that the government may consider increasing the dearness allowance (DA) in an attempt to pacify the anger among the central government employees.
The CG employees are currently getting a minimum pay of Rs 18,000. They are demanding an increase in the fitment factor by 3.68 times from the existing 2.57 times. With the hike in the fitment factor, the salary of the employees will be increased to Rs 26,000.