Akali Dal slams Punjab govt for pay panel extension

Chandigarh, April 1 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday condemned the Congress government in Punjab for giving another extension to the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission, saying this was another instance of the government reneging on its poll promise to implement the Pay Commission immediately after coming into power in 2017.

Stating that the intentions of the government as well as its anti-employees face was out in the open, SAD spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema demanded immediate submission of the Pay Commission report and implementation of its recommendations with retrospective effect.

Asserting that the government had betrayed the aspirations of lakhs of government employees, Cheema said repeated extensions had been given to the Pay Commission since the last four years.

He said no effort was made during this period to fix accountability on the commission and announce a timeframe for the commission to submit its recommendations to the state government.

He said in stark contrast neighbouring Haryana had announced implementation of the seventh Pay Commission recommendations a few years back.

He said the government had adopted a similar attitude towards other issues regarding state employees by not releasing around Rs 6,000 crore due to them on account of dearness allowance arrears.

He said this included 16 per cent dearness allowance and arrears on dearness allowance which came to around Rs 1.25 lakh to Rs 2.50 lakh per employee.

He said the government had even started discriminating against employees by announcing that new recruits would be paid as per Central pay scales, which were lower than the Punjab pay scales.

Source: IANS