The merger of 50% DA with Basic.

CENGO INDIA  feels disappointed that  the Government  has kept silent on the vital issue of  the merger of 50% DA with Basic Pay for the serving  Government Employees and with the Basic Pension for the Pensioners. This demand is very important in the background of the escalating prices of all essential commodities and the real value of pension and pay have got reduced very much.  CENGO INDIA requests the Government to come forward to take a positive decision on the issue of merger of DA / DR as the case may be and also requests all organisations of CG Employees and the Pensioners to raise their voice strongly demanding the merger of DA immediately. The wage revision of the Central Government employees had always been through the setting up of Pay Commissions.  Since the wage revision exercise involves inquiring into various aspects of wage determination and service conditions of the Government employees the Government had been appointing Pay Commissions for it was considered a better suited system of wage negotiation in the given circumstance.    Such inquiry through setting up of Commissions had been a time consuming process.  The 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th Central Pay Commissions had taken more than three years to submit its report.  The 6^th CPC however, submitted its report in the time frame provided to it i.e. 18 months.  Since the earlier Commissions had covered many aspects of the principles of wage determination and the periodicity of such revision had come down, the exercise might not now require a longer period of time as was the case earlier.  Even then the Commission will have to be given a reasonable time frame to go into the matter judiciously and arrive at conclusion.  This apart, certain administrative delay cannot also be avoided.    The methodology adopted for compensating the erosion in the real value of wages had been the merger of DA with Pay.  The 5^th CPC had recommended that the DA must be merged with pay and treated as pay for computing all allowances as and when the percentage of Dearness compensation exceeds 50%.  Accordingly even before the setting up of the 6^th CPC the DA to the extent of 50% was merged with pay. However, the Government refused to extend the said benefit to the Grameen Dak Sewaks for no reason.  Presently, the Dearness compensation is 65% as on 1.1.2012.  As on 1.1.2011, the DA was at the rate of 50%.  The suggestion for merger of DA to partially compensate the erosion in the real wages was first mooted by the Gadgil Committee in the post 2^nd Pay Commission period.  The 3^rd CPC had recommended such merger when the Cost of Living index crosses over 272 points i.e. 72 points over and above the base index adopted for the pay revision.  In other words, the recommendation of the 3^rd CPC was to merge the DA when it crossed 36%. The Government in the National Council JCM at the time of negotiation initially agreed to merge 60% DA and later the whole of the DA before the 4^th CPC was set up.  The 5^th CPC merged 98% of DA with pay.  It is, therefore, necessary that the Government takes steps to merge 50% of DA with pay for all purposes to compensate the erosion of the real value of wages of the Central Government employees.