In a good news for the state employees, the sixth state pay commission appointed by the Karnataka government in June 2017, has submitted the first volume of its report to chief minister Siddaramaiah. In this report, the sixth state pay commission has recommended a pay hike of 30 per cent for the Karnataka government employees. This will directly benefit as many as 5.20 lakh employees in the state. The state chief minister had announced government’s decision to constitute a Pay Commission to examine the request of the State Government Employees in his Budget speech 2017-18.

Acting on this, the sixth state pay commission was formed to examine the revision of pay scales of State Government Employees and to evolve a new pay structure etc on June 1, 2017. Retired IAS officer Sreenivasa Murthy was appointed as the chairman of the commission. The other members included RS Phonde, Retd. Controller State Accounts Department and Md Sanaullah, IAS (Retd).

As per the official website, the job of this pay commission was to examine the present pay structure of employees of State Government, aided educational institutions, local bodies and non-teaching staff of the Universities and to recommend new pay structure which may be feasible. The commission had also prepared some questionnaires which were available on its website, inviting responses from all the stakeholders like employees, their associations and from officers.

The decision to form this commission was taken after the state government employees had staged a demonstration in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office reiterating their demand for pay parity with Union Government employees. The Karnataka State Government Employees’ Association had also called for a statewide agitation in 2016, further forcing the government to act.

The difference in pay scale between the State and Union Government employees across different levels reportedly ranged between Rs 3,000 and Rs 10,000.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka State Government Employees’ Association (KSGES) had requested the Sixth Pay Commission to grant them a five-day working schedule and also a hike in their pay. These employees had claimed that the current salary being paid was based on the scale fixed in 2005.