7th Pay Commission: Government to vet revised pay of employees, recover the excess

New Delhi: The controller general of accounts has instructed its officials to examine if revised salaries of government employees are in line with the recommendations of the Pay Commission and recover any excess amount paid.

The government has implemented the 7th Pay panel recommendation of a hike of 2.57 times in basic salary of employees with effect from January 1. It has paid about Rs 56,000 crore as wage arrears in August salary of employees.

While implementing the award, the finance ministry had asked the controller general of accounts (CGA) that arrear claims may be paid without pre-check of the pay fixation statement in revised scales to expedite the disbursement.

"It would be necessary to ensure the pay fixation consequent upon the revision of pay structure has been correctly done with reference to the orders of the government," CGA said.

It has now issued a fresh office memorandum asking the Controller of Accounts in various ministries and departments to undertake the exercise of checking pay fixation statements and flag mistakes. The memorandum further said steps should be initiated to recover from individuals any excess amount paid.

CGA is the principal accounts advisor to the government and maintains a sound management accounting system. CGA comes out with an analysis on government's expenditure, revenues and fiscal deficit figure at the end of every month.

The fiscal deficit, the gap between expenditure and revenue for the entire fiscal, has touched 76.4 percent of Budget estimates at the end of August. For full 2016-17, fiscal deficit is targeted at Rs 5.33 lakh crore or 3.5 percent of GDP.