Team Herald
PANJIM: Following the 21-day strike notice served by government employees, Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Tuesday said the government is not bound to implement the recommendations of the 7th pay commission but assured they would be introduced before the 2017 Assembly elections.
The BJP-led government missed its own deadline of November 1 to implement the recommendation. Speaking to media persons, Parsekar said the pay scale is not a compulsion but a recommendation and hence the government is not bound to implement it. “It is not mandatory for the government to implement it. But as assured by us, we will ensure that the same is implemented before the coming elections,” he said.
“While going ahead with process to implement the 7th pay commission, we realized that we have not implemented the recommendation of 6th pay commission, that had asked to scrap the Group ‘D’. Accordingly, we have elevated Group D employees to Group C,” Parsekar said.
The Chief Minister also categorically stated that the government will not fall prey to any strike threats by the employees.
On Monday, the Goa Government Employees’ Association (GGEA) had served a 21-day strike notice to government over its failure to clear its stand on the implementation of the VIIth pay commission recommendations. The strike notice will come into force from November 28.
Meanwhile, Congress has extended its support to the GGEA and has assured that if the government fails to implement the recommendations before the elections, it will do so post the 2017 polls. “We will form the government after the 2017 elections and will implement the rise in pay scale. We will pay the arrears in one go,” Congress president Luizinho Faleiro said.
