Chandigarh, June 3
Employees of public sector banks are in for a bonanza as their salaries are set to rise. The existing basic pay and the dearness allowance (DA) is to be merged as one. Also the new DA will be 18 per cent for all employees, including officers. The new formula will be applicable from July.
Adding to all this will be increase in various slabs for house rent allowance, stagnation allowance and city compensatory allowance. The icing on the cake is that the bankers will get the benefits with retrospective effect from November, 2002.
Lakhs of employees working in
the 27 public sector (nationalised) banks will stand to gain from this move. These details of the salary hike have come about following a bipartite settlement reached between the Indian Banks Association and the employees unions yesterday at Mumbai.
Under the new formula the employees will gain anything between Rs
2,000 and Rs 6,000 a month depending upon their existing basic salary which will be used to calculate the new allowances.
Significantly this bonanza for the employees will raise the salary bill for the banks. It will cost about Rs
2,200 crore per annum and jack up the wage bill from the existing Rs 17,000 crore to nearly Rs 19,200 crore. Also paying of arrears since November 2002 will cost another Rs 6,600 crore.
As per the formula, for the first time clerical staff of banks will be transferable within the same district
up to a distance of 100 km. Earlier, this was not being done. Also the dearness allowance will be 18 per cent for all categories of employees. Earlier, this varied as per the status of the employee.
Another benefit is that the employees will be able to encash
up to 75 per cent of their entitled leave travel concession. The medical allowance has been raised. Those getting Rs
2,250 will now get Rs 3,750 while those employees entitled for a Rs
3,500 allowance will get Rs 5,000.
In case of city compensatory allowance. Officers will get 4 per cent for cities having population of more than 12
lakh. This will be the same for the clerical staff and subordinate staff. In cities having population of over 5 lakh, the CCA will be 3 per cent
for all categories.
As per the new formula, the house rent will be based on the population of the city — 45 lakh and more, 8. 5 per cent of the new basic; over 12 lakh, 7.5 per cent; over 2 lakhs, state capitals and UT's, 6.5 per cent; below 2 lakh, 6 per cent.
Also the new rates for the hill and fuel allowance will be:
For
