Term of office of 6th Pay Commission extended by another 6 months

Kolkata: The term of office of the sixth Pay Commission has been extended by another six months for submitting its report containing recommendations on restructuring of salary of the state government employees.

A resolution has been issued stating that "the term of office of the chairman and the members of the sixth Pay Commission, West Bengal," has been extended "for a further period of six months with effect from November 27".

It may be mentioned that the Commission, headed by economist Prof Abhirup Sarkar, was constituted in November 2015 and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced the setting up of the same for its recommendation for restructuring salary of the state government employees.

It may be recalled that the term of office of the sixth Pay Commission was extended twice and each time the term of office was extended for a period of one year. It was in 2016 and 2017 when the terms of office were extended. This time it has been extended for six months.

The state government officials are expecting that the recommendations of the sixth Pay Commission will come after the next six months.

It may be mentioned that this comes at a time when in June the Mamata Banerjee government had announced 25 percent additional Dearness Allowance (DA) for the state government employees with the merger of 10 percent interim relief despite financial constrains.

The same will come to effect from January 1, 2019 and the total DA of the employees will be 125 percent.

It is 90 percent more than what it was till the end of the Left Front period as CPI(M) had managed to give only 35 percent DA.

It may be mentioned that the increase in the DA will cost Rs 5000 crore more to the state exchequer every year.