Revised pay scales for PSEB staff
Umesh Dewan
Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 14
The Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) today announced to implement revised pay scales for employees as recommended by the Wage Formulation Committee (WFC).

The revision will put an extra financial burden of Rs 400 crore annually on the PSEB. The revised pay scales will be implemented from 1.1.2006.

The PSEB has maintained the pay differential of its employees vis-à-vis state government employees and has given a higher initial to all categories of employees in all five pay bands. The only deviation from the recommendations of the WFC is that the rate of increment has been kept at 3 per cent instead of 3.5 per cent.

Employees of the PSEB have been agitating for the past two months over the delay in accepting the recommendations of the WFC constituted by the board.

The coordination committee of different associations of PSEB employees had even announced that they would not celebrate Diwali this year in case their demand was not conceded.

The Engineers Association had also met the Punjab Chief Minister on this issue.

Making an announcement in this regard, PSEB Chairman Harinder Singh Brar said as per the new scales, the rate of annual increment had been kept at 3 per cent whereas benefits like house rent allowance, dearness allowance and pensionary benefits would be as permissible to Punjab Government employees.

He said the decision on the pay scales was taken at a meeting of board officials and leaders of various employees’ associations, yesterday.The meeting was attended by Member, Finance and Accounts, Anurag Agarwal, Member, Generation, G.S.Sra, Member, Transmission, S.C.Sabharwal, Member, Distribution, K.D.Chaudhry and various union leaders, including H.S.Bedi, Bhupinder Singh, Surinder Singh Pehalwan, Sukhdev Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Baljit Singh, Vijay Kumar, K.K.Goyal and Paramjit Singh.

Speaking to The Tribune, one of the senior leaders of the coordination committee of the employees, H.S.Bedi, said, “Until a notification regarding the revision of pay scales is issued, we will not comment on the matter.”