First meet to process 7th pay panel recommendations on Feb 2

Nodal officers of different ministries and departments will hold first meeting on February 2 to formulate action points for processing Seventh Pay Commission recommendations that have bearing on remuneration of about one crore central government employees and pensioners.

An Empowered Committee of Secretaries, headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, has been set up to process the panel's recommendations that would put an additional burden of Rs 1.02 lakh crore on the exchequer.

An implementation cell has been created in the finance ministry which will work as the secretariat of the committee.

Joint secretary (implementation cell) would take the meeting of all the nodal officers of ministries/departments on February 2 to discuss the relevant issues in connection with the processing of the recommendations, a finance ministry office memorandum said.

The meeting is aimed at strengthening the points of action pertaining to all the ministries/departments in general and also with regard to specific issues with a view to "enabling an effective, holistic and quicker processing" of the recommendations.

In November 2015, the finance ministry had asked concerned ministries and departments to nominate a nodal officer at the level of a joint secretary to interact with the implementation cell.

The recommendations when implemented would have a bearing on the remuneration of 4.7 million central government employees and 5.2 million pensioners.

Subject to acceptance by the government, the recommendations will take effect from January 1, 2016.