PANJIM: The 19 retired employees of theDistrict Rural Development Agency (DRDA), who retired prior to November 1, 2018 have appealed to the government to reconsider their case sympathetically on humanitarian grounds and grant them the benefits of the Seventh Pay Commission with effect from January 1, 2016, instead of November 1, 2018, as made applicable to them.
The employees have appealing to the government to reconsider their matter since they had no pension or any other source of income and thus making ends meet was an absolute herculean task.
Besides, these employees being senior citizens and suffering from diabetes, blood pressure and other ailments face hardships to survive due to non-availability of sufficient funds to buy medicines for the purpose.
According to these employees, the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission came into force from November 1, 2016 and although they were in service, they were deprived of the benefits till they retired in 2018.
Previously all the benefits of the different Pay Commissions were made applicable to the DRDA employees since the day it came into force. But this time due to injustice, one of the retired employees approached the Chief Minister, to examine the matter and take necessary decision.
One of retired employees pursuing the matter from time to time, said that the Secretary (Finance) had cleared the file on April 25, 2022 and forwarded it to the office of the Chief Minister on April 26 for approvals and sanction of revision of the Seventh Pay Commission with eff4ect from January 1, 2016.
However, it appears that the Chief Minister had declined to approve the file, the employee said adding that there was no burden on the State exchequer since the pattern of assistance for DRDA was 75:25 basis by the Central and State government respectively which was subsequently changed to 60:40, respectively.
The Central government has now withdrawn the DRDA Administration Guidelines with effect from April 1, 2022. However, since the balance of Central funds lying with the DRDA for the year 2021-2022, was to the tune of Rs 5.40 crore, a partial amount of this could have been utilised for the payment of arrears of the Seventh Pay Commission to the DRDA employees, he said.
