Sunday, October 07, 2007

What kind of a pay raise can we expect out of the Sixth Pay Commission?


About 35 percent! The Deccan Herald report quotes "sources familiar with the draft recommendations," so this estimate is speculative. But it's also in line with our experience with the previous Pay Commission.

As per a draft recommendation prepared by the Pay Commission, gross salary increases which would be implemented with retrospective effect from January 1, 2006, would be in the range of 30 to 35 per cent of the existing salaries.

According to sources familiar with the draft recommendations already prepared by the Pay Commission, the basic salary of the Cabinet Secretary — the topmost civil servant of the Government of India — is proposed to be Rs 80,000 as against the existing basic pay of Rs 30,000.

Coming back to academic salaries, a fresh recruit at the Assistant Professor level can expect a gross salary (without house rent allowance) of about Rs. 35,000 from the current Rs. 25,000. Clearly, this sort of raise, while it does have its benefits (!), is nothing to write home about. Our premier institutions had better get cracking on some of the other things we talked about just a few days ago, if they want to remain (become ?) attractive destinations for top faculty talent.

2 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    Prof. Abi,

    Even this figure of 30% hike seems surprising - don't forget that the it applies to the faculty of some 18000 colleges and 380 universities! Given this, if one expects the salaries to go 3 fold, it is wishful thinking/foolishness.

    In a sense, it is a boon - the majority of teachers in univs/colleges don't deserve even a paise increment, let alone Rs. 10000.

    On the other end, the majority of faculty in premier institutes who supposedly deserve much more can be paid only such meagre increments. That's the tragedy. From all accounts,there are so many people watching the scenario and are ready to quit after assessing the pay commission reports.

    In a higher educational system as large and diverse as in India, this is inevitable if all salaries are tied together - you can just ensure that everything is brought down to the lowest common denom.

    I fully agree with you on the need to be innovative when it comes to faculty retention in premier institutes. I doubt though, it will ever happen in our govt. system.

    -kumar

  2. Anonymous said...

    Prof.,
    It seems to me that you are implying (as is the article) that the salary of a Cabinet Secretary is set to triple. I don't think, that is the case. My understanding is that while at secretarial levels the basic pay is fixed at Rs. 26000, what they get is considerably more. Salary changes come into effect years before the pay scales are finalised. As a result employees recieve a Dearness Allowance, to make up for arrears. This allowance is added to the basic pay. So what a Secretary level officer gets today could be between 40-60k. When the new pay scales come into effect, the DA will again be 0 or very small, as new scales will be operative from January 1, 2006. So basically the salary hike in case of Secretaries will be 30-40%.

    -Abhijit