Saturday, September 21, 2019

Now senior govt staff won’t be paid less than juniors

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:21.09.2019

Pay anomalies are an integral part of government service. Government employees either end up in courts seeking remedies or await the mercy of their superiors to set right anomalies. But now, the state government has introduced a new system to ensure that seniors don’t get paid less than their juniors.

Pay anomalies are common in state government service. There are superintending engineers in the public works department drawing less salary than executive engineers who report to them. A senior revenue official noticed recently that his junior was drawing a higher salary. An assistant director in the art and culture department had a harrowing time getting pay anomaly rectified after charges against him, for which his pay was docked, were not proved.

Chief secretary K Shanmugam recently issued an order to all heads of departments to prepare detailed salary statements of their staff, following a new format, to identify and rectify pay anomalies, mainly instances of seniors drawing less salary than juniors. “It has been noticed by the personnel and administrative reforms department that the particulars which are furnished by the heads of the departments /administrative departments in Secretariat regarding the service details and pay drawn particulars are not sufficient to compare and justify the pay anomaly,” the chief secretary said. Also, the pay fixation details of many employees were found to be erroneous on cross-checking with service registers. The heads of departments also failed to provide authenticated copy of the seniority list.

Interestingly, the instructions for rectifying pay anomalies – of juniors getting paid more than seniors – was issued long ago. Subsequently, many pay commission recommendations were implemented by the finance department and fundamental rule provisions were amended too.

Tamil Nadu Secretariat Association president, S Peter Anthonysamy, said the new format would replace complicated formats followed by various departments in the past. “There used to be hundreds of queries earlier, and the files used to be pending for up to 15 years. The new format will benefit the staff and avoid the delay,” Anthonysamy said. The seniors are guaranteed the arrears after the anomalies are rectified, he said.

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