AGARTALA, August 20 (TIWN): The state cabinet today denied the much expected allowance of stepping up of pay band or grade pay for state government employees under the pretext of risk possibilities of fund sanction from the 14th Finance Commission.Speaking to reporters at his office in the civil secretariat here on Tuesday afternoon, Finance Minister Bhanulal Saha said that the state government had had a tough experience from the Pay Review Committee recommendations of raising the pay band of government employees in January, 2009 since the 13th Finance Commission denied including any of the ensuing liabilities in its recommendations.

“We had increased salary of state government employees by an average of 38 percent as per the Pay Review Committee recommendations. It involved an additional Rs. 1,150 crores financial liability per year and we didn’t get any of it back from the Finance Commission awards”, the minister said.

He added that YV Reddy, chairman of the 14^th Finance Commission was apprised of the alleged deprivations meted out to Tripura by the 13^th Finance Commission. “We are hopeful that we could convince him about our situation. We can’t, however, say anything specific about awards for state government employees before the 14^th Finance Commission declared its awards for the state”, Finance Minister Saha said.

Finance Minister Saha said that the state government continued to maintain its in-principle decision of allowing DA and grade pay at par with central government employees. The state is currently estimated to have 1 lakh 61 thousand employees including fixed, contractual, DRW and contingent workers.

A recent exercise found that the state would require an additional fund of Rs. 2,400 crores per year to meet all demands of the employees and pensioners, if the government had to meet all national standards at par with the 6^th Pay Commission.