PANJIM: The employees of the Department of Rural Development Agency (DRDA) both in service and retired have appealed to the State government to pay 34 months pending arrears of the Central Seventh Pay Commission.
They said that the government implemented the Seventh Pay for them from November 1, 2018 and not from January 1, 2016. As many as 60 employees especially 21 who retired prior to November 1, 2018 were deprived of the benefits of the Pay Commission and there was also no pensionery benefits to the staff who retired from the department.
According to them, the government had earlier agreed to give them the arrears and the total liability was also worked out to over Rs 1.48 crore. The DRDA was entirely different from other autonomous bodies, which were revenue generation whereas DRDA was scheme implementing agency functioning entirely on the grants received from the Central and the State government grants on the basis of 60:40 ratio.
They stated that the Chief Minister had also assured one of the employees retired prior to November 1, 2018 to look into the matter. The government had recently agreed to implement the Seventh Pay Commission to the Kadamba Transport Corporation (KTC) employees, they further pointed out.