pay commission 7th cpc excess payment vet finance ministry govt employees cga check verify
A private money trader counts Indian Rupee currency notes at a shop in Mumbai August 1, 2013 (representational image).Reuters file

The Narendra Modi government wants to check whether there were excess payments to Central government employees while implementing the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC).

It has asked the Controller General of Accounts (CGA), working under the union finance ministry, to examine the payments and recover excess, if any. The CGA is the principal accounts adviser to the Indian government. 

"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," the CGA said, reported PTI.

Earlier, the government had asked the CGA to release the payments to the employees and pensioners "without pre-check of the pay fixation statement in revised scales" to ensure that there are no delays in disbursement of salary arrears.

The recommendations of the 7th CPC are applicable to 47 lakh central government employees and 53 lakh pensioners, of which 14 lakh employees and 18 lakh retirees are from the defence forces.

The recommendations pertaining to the 2.57 times hike in basic salary was accepted by the Union Cabinet on June 29 while those pertaining to allowances were referred to a high-level committee.

"For the purpose of revision of pay and pension, a fitment factor of 2.57 will be applied across all Levels in the Pay Matrices," the finance ministry said.

"...the Cabinet decided to constitute a Committee headed by Finance Secretary for further examination of the recommendations of 7th CPC on Allowances. The Committee will complete its work in a time bound manner and submit its reports within a period of 4 months. Till a final decision, all existing Allowances will continue to be paid at the existing rates," it added.

The estimated outgo on account of the full implementation of the pay commission's recommendations is about Rs. 1.02 lakh crore in the current fiscal, while the additional implication on account of payments of arrears of pay and pension for two months of 2015-16 is about Rs. 12,133 crore, according to the government.