The National Council (Staff Side) Joint Consultative Machinery for Central Government Employees has written a letter to the Central Government against the decision of freezing of dearness allowances and dearness relief.
Shiva Gopal Mishra, General Secretary, the national council (representing employees) of the joint consultative machinery has written to Cabinet Secretary GOI to immediately roll back decision to cut Dearness Allowance of Central Government Employees & Pensioners.
The letter says that before taking such a major policy decision the government has not bothered to consult the national council and without hearing the views of staff side, the decision affects the wages of employees and pension of senior citizen is against the spirit of JCM scheme. The entire 48 lacs Central government employees and the 65 lacs pensioners are very much disappointed against the most drastic decision.
Moreover, the freezing of DA will have a serious impact of the House rent allowance of the employees. In accordance with the 7th CPC recommendations and as approved by the government the HRA rates will be revised from 24% to 27% in ‘X’ cities, and from 16% to 18% in “Y” cities and 8% to 9% in “Z” cities. The manner in which the prices for the essential commodities are rocketing sky high, DA is expected to cross 25% from 01.07.2020 onwards. Since the DA is frozen the employees will loose this hike in the HRA also.
The Central & State governments employees are the one who are playing their front line role in the fight against COVID-19 Virus by taking all risk and working in the field exposing themselves without any sufficient Personal Protective Equipments. The railway, defence civilian, postal and all other central government employees have already contributed their one day wages to the PM-CARES Fund, said the letter.
DA is not a gift of the Govt. DA is paid to the employees only to compensate the cost of living and to protect the wages from erosion in the real value on account of inflation. Govt. has got no moral authority to freeze the DA of the Central Govt. Employees & Pensioners. By not paying the increased DA to the Govt. Employees & Pensioners for 18 months the Govt. is saving more than 50,000 Crores. This savings will go to whom ?, whether to the Corporate Houses or to the suffering workers of this country ?
The government is not contemplating to withdraw any of the tax concessions including the recently reduced Corporate Tax which benefitted them to the tune of Rs One Lakh Forty Five Thousands crores (1.45 lakh crores) given to the Big Corporates. The Government had in the last five and half years written of the loans of these Corporates to the tune of Rs seven lakh and seventy thousands (7,70,000 crores) of crores. Above all that there are more than Rupees 13 lakh crores of pending loans called NPAs to be recovered from these Corporate houses. It is the fact on parliament records that the tax recovery to the tune of Rs 8 lakh and 90,000 crores is pending in which the major defaulters again are these Corporates. This is also on record in parliament that 36 rich business entities left the country in the last 5 years fleecing our banks to the tune of more than one lakh crore rupees.
The Government has got no programme to curtail the price rise on essential commodities. Instead of freezing the price rise, Govt. is squeezing the employees. It is the Central Govt. & State Govt. employees who are in the frontline in the field fighting against the dangerous COVID-19 Virus. They are under severe risk and the Govt. is not able to provide even the required Personal Protective Equipments to them. When the Private Corporate Houses have gone hiding during this lockdown period, it is the Govt. Employees in the Health Department, Defence, Railways, Telecom, Postal, Power, Oil, Coal etc., are in the field to provide services and to prevent the spread the COVID-19 Virus. The Govt. instead of recognizing the services of the Central Govt. Employees and Pensioners have started punishing them economically.
The secretary has requested the Government to reconsider the decision and withdraw the same so as to motivate the central government employees to perform their responsibilities especially in this crisis period.
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