Stepping Up of Pay: DOPT Clarification orders issued on 25.5.2015

Stepping Up of Pay: DOPT Clarification orders issued on 25.5.2015

The DOPT has issued a clarification order regarding ‘Stepping up of Pay’, on 25.05.2015.(Click to view the order)

Clarifications have been given regarding the pay fixation of direct recruit Assistants who had been recruited for Central Government employment on or after 01.01.2006. Instructions have also been issued to all ministries/departments regarding the stepping up of pay at par with the pay of UDCs who were promoted as Assistants, between 01.01.2006 to 31.8.2008.

Normally, revised pay is the pay scale that comes into effect after a new Pay Commission. Pre-Revised Pay is the pay scale that is prevalent prior to the new Pay Commission.

Let’s take the case of an employee who had joined the Central Government services in February 2006. He would have received nearly 31 months of Pre-Revised Pay, i.e., the basic pay and allowances as per the 5th Pay Commission. The recommendations of the 6th Pay Commissions were announced in September 2008, but with retrospective effect from 01.01.2006 onwards. So, the employee’s pay fixation, once again refixed as per the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules 2008 and comes into effect from Feb 2006 onwards. This means that the employee was never paid according to the 5th Pay Commission, and he had been paid as per the 6th Pay Commission’s revised pay scale!

The order said that as per the CCS (RP) Rules, 2008, the stepping up of pay is allowed if the anomaly in pay, if at all arising, is a direct outcome of fixation of pay in the revised pay scale from the pre-revised scale to the effect that the senior who was drawing higher pay in the pre-revised scale, starts drawing lower pay in the revised scale.

“In the case of direct recruit Assistants appointed on or after 1.1.2006, the direct recruits never drew the pre-revised pay prior to 1.1.2006.”

“Further, Department of Expenditure’s U.O. dated 14.12.2009 relates to fixation of pay in revised scale from pre-revised scale of pay.”

Let this article not make you think that such anomaly exist only for Assistants. All those who had been recruited on 01.01.2006 are facing one tricky situation or the other. One of the main reasons for this confusion is the habit of not implementing the recommendations of the Pay Commission on the prescribed day, and dragging it on for years.

If the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission are to be implemented from 01.01.2016 onwards, as announced earlier, then such anomalies can be avoided.