7th Pay commission recommends abolition of overtime

Pay Commissions are set up by the government intermittently, to revise the salary structure of government employees.

The first pay commission was set up in 1956 and since then, a pay commission had been set up every decade.

The latest, the Seventh Pay Commission, headed by retd. Justice AK Mathur, was set up in Feb'14 and was given 18 months to submit its report.

The Seventh Pay Commission has recommended the abolition of overtime allowances given to central government employees.

However, for industrial staff and operational employees such as those in railways and defence ministries, where overtime is mandated by law, the panel has recommended increasing it by 50%.

A committee of secretaries headed by Cabinet Secretary, P. K. Sinha, is reviewing the commission's recommendations.

The Seventh Pay Commission data shows that the overtime has more than doubled from Rs.797 crores in 2006-07 to Rs.1,629 crores in 2012-13.

According to the Seventh Pay commission, government offices need to improve productivity and efficiency and control government expenditure.

"Government employees, like everyone else, should be paid for results, not to spend time in the office" -Rathin Roy, Seventh Pay Commission member.

The Seventh Pay Panel has observed that the overtime given to the railway and defence ministries account for 90% of the total overtime paid by the government.

The defence ministry has been able to control the overtime allowances from 8% of pay in 2006-07 to 6.54% in 2012-13.

However, the overtime allowances in railways have increased from 2.09% in 2006-07 to 2.58% in 2012-13.