Guest & Training Faculty Announcement: Sixth Pay Commission Recommendations Pay Hike

The latest news on the Sixth Pay Commission is coming for the Guest & Training Faculty. Below, we present the text as it appears on the Office Memorandum Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Department of Personnel & Training. Though utmost care has been taken to replicate the text as it is, but E&OE. Wikipedia on Sixth Pay Commission Ministry Site

Subject: Honorarium for guest faculty

Consequent upon the implementation of Sixth Central Pay Commission's recommendations the President is pleased to issue the following instructions regarding the grant of Honorarium payable to experts/eminent persons coming as guest faculty to the Central Training Establishments:-

i The pattern followed by the Department of Personnel & Training and Lai Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussouriefor the purpose of grant of honorarium payable to experts/eminent persons coming as guest faculty will be made applicable to all other Central Training Establishments for Group A Services;

ii An honorarium of Rs.5C0/-(Rupees five hundred) per session may be paid to serving officers,

iii. For non-serving officers, an honorarium of Rs-lOOfMRupees one thousand) per session may be

iv When experts/eminent resource persons are invited as guest faculty, the remuneration fees or honorarium upto an amount of Rs.4000/-(Rupees four thousand) per session may be paid, only .1 there are reasons that justify such payment, which should be duly recorded in writing by the Head of the Training Institution or Academy; and v The present instructions under F,R 46 B, which provide for an annual ceiling of Rs.5000 tor honorarium to Government employees, stands amended for in-service guest faculty to provide for a ceiling of up to 30 days or 60 sessions in a year, whichever is lower,

2. These orders shall be effective from the date of issue.
3. These orders are Issued in consultation with Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure vide their I.CU.O.NO.4.2/5/2008-IC dated 29.1.Z009.
4. In so far as persons serving in the Indian Audit & Accounts Department are concerned, these orders issue after consultation with the Controller & Auditor General of India

UNITES files PIL for reduction in work hours in IT BPO Companies

There may be some respite for the Indian BPO employees. The Indian IT workforce has been unorganised so far, but there is an indian subsidiary of the Union for Information & Technology Enabled Services or called UNITES, which was formed to organise the workforce. This organisation has taken a stand to raise the voices of the Indian IT and especially the BPO employees for the double standards of the IT employers in the country.

What is the matter all about?
The matter is regarding the working hours. As per the rules, Indian Factories Act, 1948., the maximum number of hours an employees is required to work is only eight hours daily. However, as per UNITES hundreds of IT companies across the country are clearly flaunting this law and asking the individuals to works for many long hours, sometimes strethching well beyond 60 hours per week.

So what is UNITES going to do now?
UNITES has filed a PIL or Public interest litigation in defence of the employees of the IT and BPO sector. It is alleging that the 'arbitrary policy' of many Indian and multinational IT/ITeS firms in India are forcing the employees to work for well beyond the required 40 hours per week.
For e.g. in yesterday's TOI, there were reports about companies like Wipro and Infosys having a mandatory presence of more than 9 or 9.5 hours in the office. If employees fail to be there for those many hours or get short by even 15 minutes, the HR department keeps sending reminders and notices. The same is true for many other companies as well.

What is UNITES
UNITES, the country's first union in the IT-BPO sector, is affiliated to the Indian National Trade Union Congress. It claims to have around 10 per cent of the total IT-BPO workforce of 2 million as members, and said the numbers have been dramatically rising over the last two months on the back of lay-offs in the sector. The union is also part of Union Network International, which has over 16 million workers in 13 different sectors from 163 countries.

What is the stand of the IT and BPO companies
IT firms, on their part, insist that the Act is not being violated since IT workers have to work for 48 hours a week - eight hours daily for six days. However, since most IT firms have a five-day working week, they work longer hours, hence there is a clear case of misunderstanding of the act and that leads to non-uniformity about the work hours.

As per the news, due to the recent turmoil in the world markets, there have been many lay offs and many companies are using this scenario to exploit most of the employees by increasing the no. of working hours significantly. the increase of daily working hours from eight to almost 10 hours by Indian and multinational companies officially is "a double standard by the IT firms, who, on the one hand are firing people saying they are not getting enough work, and on the other hand, forcing employees to work more since they are getting more work".

He said UNITES has requested industry body Nasscom to step in to clarify the stance.

The IT sector in India was once the torchbearer of many best HR practices, including flexi-office hours.

However, the situation has changed on the back of a slowing economy. Global IT services firm Accenture, for instance, is reportedly planning to increase working hours by almost an hour with effect from January 1 next year. Infosys [Get Quote], India's second-largest IT exporter, too, has asked its employees' to strictly abide by the duty hours that the company has fixed as 9.15 hours a day on all working days. Wipro [Get Quote] also has stipulated 9.5 hours working hours a day, and is becoming much stricter in terms of timing.

Then there is the other side of the story - Companies allege that long work hours are OK as the IT employees are getting much much higher salary than their counterparts from the other sectors. So ultimately, there will be a long standing debate on the topic. Let's see what comes out from the PIL filed by UNITES.

CBDT, CBEC are now Special Seceratary Rank: Sixth Pay Commission Pay Hike

The latest news on the Sixth Pay Commission: It is regarding the CBDT, CBEC & IRS department employees. It is in continuation of our previously reported article on 11th November, where we mentioned about the IT Income Tax, Customs, Excise IRS Officers Pay Hike unrest and the good news is that the government has agreed to upgrade their ranks. Wikipedia on Sixth Pay Commission Site

As per the news, the government has agreed to promote the posts of the employees of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to a new post. This new post will be equivalent to the level of Special Secretary.

What will be the new salary for the Special Secretary rank for CBDT & CBEC?
The new promoted post of special secretary will earn a fixed monthly basic pay salary of Rs. 80,000 per month.
THis was reported by the Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Prithviraj Chavan.

All this development happened when the members of the IRS or Indian Revenue Services department Association expressed unrest about the implementations of the sixth pay commission for their department.

The CBDT is responsible for collection of direct taxes including income tax and corporate tax, while the CBEC collects customs, central excise and service tax.
Apart from chairman, there are six members in the CBDT and five members in CBEC

IT Income Tax, Customs, Excise IRS Officers Pay Hike unrest: Sixth Pay Commission

There comes another set of news from the Sixth Pay Commission. It is from the Income Tax IT & Customs Department:

The government is already finding it difficult to cope with the burden of Sixth pay Commission Recommendations and pacify all segments of government employees. However, unrest is growing among various government departments. The latest one to add to the list of dissatifieds are the Income Tax IT department employees and the Customs and Excise Employees. The defence forces are already up in arms against the government.
All this is courtesy to the Sixth Pay Commission Recommendations, where there are cases where the government sector employee salary has gone way up compared that his/her counterpart in the private sector. Wikipedia on Sixth Pay Commission News
The issue also sttributes the the problems of anomalies in the Promotions of officers of Income Tax IT department employees and the Customs and Excise department.

As per the news, Thousands of customs officials struck work on Tuesday and took to the streets against the delay in their promotions, in what can set back government's already difficult task to realise the revenue target.

Customs and central excise officials from across the country gathered at Jantar Mantar in the Capital on Tuesday, to march up to barricades raised at Parliament Street police station.

The protest comes even as income tax officials, another revenue gathering arm, have already resorted to a `go slow' to insist on removal of pay anomalies and for better prospects of promotion.

Officials of the income tax department, are also up in arms against the same issues.

Sources said revenue secretary P V Bhide has called a meeting of all 18 chief commissioners of I-T at North Block on Wednesday to deliberate on the slowdown in the tax collection. With a few CBDT members having already raised the issue of discontentment in the rank and file over the pay anomalies and its impact on the tax mop up, the revenue department boss is likely to address the matter.

The discontentment over the `alleged' raw deal from the 6th pay commission is not only restricted to the IRS Indian Revenue Services cadre officers, but spread even to the ranks of inspectors, superintendents and promotee assistant commissioners who feel they have been ignored. The lower rungs feel discriminated even from their top bosses in the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) and CBDT.