Srinagar, Dec 19: While the implementation of the sixth pay commission report in J&K from July this year has brought some cheer to the employees, it has also created a concern in them with regard to the family pension.
 The employees said the central pay recommendations were silent on “family pension in J&K” and the government while implementing the report had not cleared this issue.
 The employees said that according to the state rules that were in operation since 1974 if an employee died in harness his/her family would get pension equal to the last salary drawn by the deceased for seven years or till the date the deceased would have retired, whichever is earlier. And, after that period the family pension would get reduced to 50 per cent.
 “This rule,” the employees said, “was unique to J&K alone and did not exist anywhere else in India.”
 The employees said with the implementation of the central pay report however, this rule would no longer be followed in the state and instead the spouse of the deceased employee would get the pension only according to the provisions in the J&K Government Notification SRO 94.
 “The SRO 94 has not taken the state rules into consideration. Officials who prepared this order have directly copied it from the report of the Central Sixth Pay Commission. Since this scheme is not available to the central government employees, this benefit will automatically get removed from the state rules as well,” said the employees.
 “Now onwards the family of the employee who dies in service will not be able to avail the benefits of the existing pension scheme as there is no mention of it in J&K Pay Commission Notification. Hence his/her family can only draw the family pension equal to the 30 per cent of the last salary drawn by him as mentioned in the notification,” they added.
 In the absence of any order by the government regarding the suspension of the existing family pension scheme in the state, the employees consider it was necessary to implement the same rules in the Jammu and Kashmir by issuing necessary clarification in the relevant provisions of SRO 94 issued on 15-4-2009.
 “It has happened only because of the ignorance. The people who have prepared this report have not taken the state family pension rules into consideration while formulating it,” said the employees.
 According to the employees the existing family pension rules in the state cannot be implemented by virtue of the Sixth Pay Commission until the order in the SRO 94 regarding the same is amended.
 “It is a fervent plea to the government to direct the authorities concerned to revise the order and make sure that the existing family pension rules do not get cancelled,” they said.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Dec 2009 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 IST