Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah has demanded that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai should make public the interim report of the Seventh Pay Commission.
Mr. Bommai’s assurance to government employees that he will effect a 17% hike in their salaries is not enough. He should make the report public so that everyone knows what the recommendations are and what is the burden on the State Exchequer, the Congress leader said in Belagavi on Wednesday.
He also demanded that the Pay Commission should study the feasibility and implications of going back to the Old Pension Scheme.
He said that the Chief Minister is lying about the government’s preparedness for implementing the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
Mr. Bommai has said that he has set aside money for the implementation of the recommendations of the Pay Commission. This is far from the truth. The budget does not have enough allocation for such a provision. The Chief Minister is only trying to stop the employees from going on strike, before polls, Mr. Siddaramaiah said.
He said that the Congress, if it were to come to power, will definitely implement the Seventh Pay Commission recommendation just as it implemented the Sixth Pay Commission report in the past. “I had announced the setting up and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, though it was to cost an extra ₹10,600 crore. We kept our word. But it does not seem that the BJP will do so. They do not have the intention to do so,” he said.
He said that only 54% of last year’s budgetary allocation has been spent by the Bommai administration.
“In 11 months of this financial year, they have only spent this much. How are they expected to spend the balance 46% of the budgeted amount in the one month left for the elections?” he said.
In less than three weeks, the model code of conduct will come into force. How can the budgetary promises be implemented then? How does the Chief Minister hope to fulfil the assurances made in the last budget? This means the BJP is only interested in making empty promises and not in keeping them, he said.
