Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said the decision to implement the final recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission for State government employees would be taken after considering the financial status of the exchequer. He also clarified that the extension of six months given to the commission headed by the former Chief Secretary K. Sudhakar Rao was done based on the commission’s request.
“The interim relief of 17% has been given to the employees. The commission has been given an extension of six months. Once the final report is received, and keeping the State finances in mind, a decision to implement the 7th Pay Commission report will be taken,” Mr. Siddaramaiah told the Legislative Council, responding to a question from BJP member Y.A Narayanswamy. He said the commission also had to interact with various departments before the recommendation is submitted to the government. He also pointed out that when he implemented the final recommendation of the 6th Pay Commission report, the burden on the exchequer was ₹10,508 crore.
Mr. Narayanswamy requested, “In the enthusiasm to implement the guarantees, do not forget the government employees.”
Over 50% vacancies in many departments
Many government departments in the State have whopping vacancies of over 50%, with the E-governance Department having 93% vacancies of the sanctioned posts.
Raising the issue in the Legislative Council on Thursday, BJP member H.S. Gopinath pointed out that the Kannada and Culture Department had 72% vacancies, Social Welfare Department had 64%, Scheduled Tribe Welfare Department had 82%, and the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms had 50% vacancies. “As many as 24 departments out of the 43 departments in the State have vacancies of more than 50%,” he said.
Acknowledging that an average 33% of the sanctioned posts in Karnataka were vacant, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said efforts would be made to fill them up in stages, and pointed out that it was also one of the poll promises made by the Congress. He said that of the total 7.72 lakh sanctioned posts in the State, 5.16 lakh posts were filled while 2.55 lakh posts were vacant. About 75,400 posts were filled through outsourcing, and most of these were the ‘C’ and ‘D’ group posts.
