Cabinet approves sixth pay panel, bonanza for babus

GOVERNMENT ON Thursday (August 14) approved the Sixth Pay Panel hike for the civil servants, armed forces employees and paramilitary personnel. It announced a 20 per cent hike, much to the joy of the expecting bureaucrats and a big hike that has been proposed for the armed forces as well.

These recommendation will benefit 55 lakh employees of the government of India.

There is 25 to 30 per cent hike in the salary of Central government employees. The employees will be paid arrears in cash and recommendations will be effective from January 2006, a meeting of the Union cabinet decided on Thursday.

The pay hike will be paid in two installments with 40 per cent paid this year and rest to be paid next year.

On Wednesday (August 12), the Prime Minister chaired a meeting, in which top government functionaries met and discussed the recommendations of the Pay Commission report and those made by the empowered committee of secretaries.

The Pay Commission had recommended an increase of 1.74 per cent in salary to the armed forces, based on inflation data but it is likely that it will come to 1.83 times after revision.