Bihar government approves pay scale change for nearly 13 lakh government servants

The Bihar cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to revise the pay scale to its employees, pensioners and contractual government school teachers with effect from April 1, 2017.

The decision to grant the revised pay scale and pension will benefit around 3.65 lakh state government employees, 6 lakh pensioners and 3.6 lakh contractual government school teachers of the state, Cabinet Secretariat Department Principal Secretary Brajesh Mehrotra told reporters.

The state cabinet gave its nod in view of the recommendations of the State Pay Commission set up under the chairmanship of former Bihar chief secretary G S Kang, which submitted its report to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Monday.

Giving details, principal secretary to the Finance Department Ravi Mittal said the cabinet decided that employees and pensioners would get notional benefit from January 1, 2016 while the financial benefit will accrue to them with effect from April 1, 2017.

This means that they will get increased salary with effect from April 1, 2017.

"There will be a raise of around 14-15 per cent," Mittal said adding there would be financial burden of Rs 5000 crore financial burden on the state exchequer towards payment of the revised pay scale and pension.

The amount does not include the expenditure to be incurred for payment of allowances such as HRA, medical and others, he said adding that decision on increase in allowances will be taken once the State Pay Commission submits its report, for which it has been given two months extension.

Following implementation of the new pay scale the employees - both state government and contractual school teachers will get 2.57 times of his/her basic pay plus grade pay that he/she was getting on January 1, 2016, Mittal said.

The gratuity limit has also been increased from current Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, Mehrotra said.

Giving details about the revised pay-scale for contractual government school teachers, principal secretary to the education department R K Mahajan said that the decision would benefit around 3.6 lakh teachers.

Under the contractual scheme untrained teachers and those on probation do not get grade pay, he said adding that teachers working on regular pay scale will get revised pay as state government employees.

Mahajan said that payment of revised pay scale to contractual teachers will put additional financial burden of Rs 1500 crore on state exchequer apart from Rs 5,000 crore to be spent additionally on state government employees and pensioners for their revised pay-scale.