The Odisha State Government Employees’ Coordination Committee on Tuesday threatened noncooperation with the Brahmapur Municipal Corporation (BMC) authorities in conducting the ensuing elections to the urban local bodies if the existing house rent allowance given to BMC employees is not increased from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of their basic pay as per the revised pay-scales recommended by the Sixth Pay Commission.
As per the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, the employees working under Municipal Corporations are entitled to receive 20 per cent of their basic pay as house rent allowance, which is given to the employees of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation and Cuttack Municipal Corporation. However, the employees of the Brahmapur Municipal Corporation continue to be paid 10 per cent.
In a memorandum given to the BMC Mayor on Monday, the employees demanded to know that while the employees of the two other Municipal Corporations (Bhubaneswar and Cuttack) are paid house rent allowance at the rate of 20 per cent,why have the Government and the BMC authorities followed a discriminatory practice for them. The repeated demands and agitations by the BMC employees from time to time remain unheeded by the Government, they alleged.
If the demand for increase I the house rent allowance is not fulfilled, the BMC employees, including the teachers working under the BMC, would be forced to non-cooperate with the BMC authorities in conduct of the municipal elections, for which the BMC authorities and the Government would be held responsible, they said. Former Assembly Deputy Speaker Rama Chandra Panda demanded payment of house rent allowance to the BMC employees at par with their counterparts in the other Municipal Corporations. The Government is deliberately following a discriminatory practice in case of BMC employees, he alleged.