Negation of the promises – Granting Interim Relief/Merger of DA, LTC by Air and Exemption of Income Tax

Negation of the promises – Granting Interim Relief/Merger of DA, LTC by Air and Exemption of Income Tax

Top leaders of the present Central Government had showered promises to the working class, especially the Central Government Employees during General Election. The promises including exemption of Income Tax limit up to 5 lakhs and many other assurances appeared to have more than 80% Government Employees in favour of them. But today we see the blatant negations of the promises made by them.

As against the promise of exemption of Income tax limit up to 5 lakhs, a mere increase of Rs. 30000 i.e. from Rs. 220000 to 250000 made whereas everybody know the minimum annual increase of salary due to increments and DA during the period 1/4/2013 to 31/3/2014 is more than 50000. Thus, in spite of Rs. 30000 exemption, the lower income group whose gross salary is less than Rs. 5 lakhs has been charged more taxes than the previous year.

Yet another betrayal from the stand taken in favour of central Government Employees by the then major opposition party is the refusal of giving IR/merger of DA. It is said that merger of DA is not considered because 6th Pay Commission in its report has not recommended for such merger. It is worth mentioning here that constitution of 7th Pay Commission was also not recommended by the 6th Pay Commission.

Cancellation of LTC by air for low class employees

Moreover, prior to the Government taking over the charge lower level central Government employees had allowed LTC for North East/Jammu & Kashmir by Air. Granting of LTC by air to the 28 lakhs Group C employees for North East and Jammu & Kashmir were chiefly aimed for the economic growth of these statesand more integration with the rest of India. But the Government has withdrawn the facility. On the other hand officers with Rs. 5400 and more Grade pay are still allowed to fly anywhere in India either on tour or LTC.

Now the Government of India has announced installation of biometric punching machine in all its offices in a phased manner and the same are being linked with Aadhar. In this series most of the Government Offices functioning in Delhi has already been installed and the remaining offices have been asked to install the machine immediately. But, merely installing biometric punching machine and asking the employees to report duty in time will not solve the issue. A section of employees especially employees belong to lower income group working in Delhi offices are living outside Delhi. It has come to know that persons residing more than 150 Kms away from Delhi are attending duties in Delhi offices by travelling local trains & other conveyance. What prevent them to stay in Delhi? First reason is non allocation of Government quarters in the nearby places of their posting. Secondly, the living cost of Delhi is not bearable to a low class employee because the successive pay commissions and Governments neglected them. According to the 6th Pay Commission pay structure MTS, LDC or the posts with equivalent grade would not get net monthly salary more than Rs. 14000-16000. How they manage a family with this meager amount? So they used to live in the joint family in the home villages in the nearby areas of Delhi. Since being the value of humanity is above than everything, Government should study and solve the problems faced by this section also.

By concluding this, I would like to produce a comment written by an anonymous person on Ministry of Finance directive to keep economy in use of paper in Central Government Offices. “Finance Ministry, Dept of expenditure, DoPT is the major breeding grounds of unnecessary expenditures. They are the root cause of many court cases. They did not accept to implement the judgment to similarly placed employees, like the case of MACP in promotional hierarchy. This lead many cases filed in various courts all over India. This result into huge expenditure to govt. in respect of legal adviser fee, court fee etc. But they go on speaking about economy in use of paper. They never apply their mind to curtail court case expenditure”.