7th Pay Commission: Odisha govt announces new pay scale as Dussehra Bonanza; nearly 8 lakh employees, pensioners to benefit

The Odisha government on Tuesday brought a sense of relief for lakhs of state government employees by announcing to implement the 7th Central Pay Commission recommendations for the state government employees.

Announcing it here, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said over 4.5 lakh serving employees and 3.5 lakh lakh pensioners will get enhanced emoluments and higher pension respectively. Naveen has instructed to implement the revised pay scale from 1st January, 2016.

"Annual additional expenditure on this count would be about Rs 4,500 crore. Government will get the pay hike from September salary onwards," said Naveen.

According to sources, the state government is working out on arrears to be given to the employees and pensioners for 20 months (January 2016 to August 2017). The arrears would be around 9000 crore, official sources said.

Though details of the revised pay matrix for various groups of employees is yet to be revealed, sources in the chief minister's office (CMO) said the state government would implement the pay commission recommendations in line with the Centre.

According to sources, there would be a 14.5 per cent hike in the basic pay of each employee, while overall salary will be hiked by 23 per cent. "The fitment committee constituted to examine the recommendations of the pay commission has suggested it to the state government and the government has accepted the suggestions," said an officer.