JAIPUR: The state government clarified before the House on Wednesday that the D C Samant committee was formed to remove anomalies in salaries of employees while implementing the 7th Pay Commission. There was no proposal to downgrade the salaries of 2 lakh state employees, the government further said. BJP legislator Sandeep Sharma raised the matter during the Question Hour, inquiring the need for the Samant committee that was constituted last month. Industries minister Rajpal Singh Shekhawat said, the chief minister announced to form the committee during the previous state Budget (2016-17)."Salaries in the state were not always revised as per the recommendations of Pay Commissions. It was in 1986 that, for the first time, salaries of state employees were revised on the basis of 4th Pay Commission. For the first time, salaries were revised as per pay-scales, running pay-band and grade-pay of the 6th Pay Commission," Shekhawat said, while explaining how anomalies in salaries crept in over the decades.The minister informed the House there was no need to make budget allocation to implement the 7th Pay Commission recommendations, as there was a 'tradition' of accommodating it with the supplementary demands. Shekhawat said expenditure due to subrogation during the 5th Pay Commission was too high and led to few recruitment between 1998 and 2006.In response Sharma's query, the minister clarified that pay commission recommendations were not applicable to contractual workers. He also said the government had no intention to reduce the new recruits' probation period, which was two years.Independent legislator Randhir Singh Bhindar asked the minister if the government would show equal commitment towards farmers by implementing the Swaminathan report on agriculture. Shekhawat replied that the two issues cannot be compared. "To the relief of farmers, state government recently decided to bear the burden of rollback in power tariff (for agriculture purposes)," the minister said.Outside the assembly, hundreds of employees of the public health and engineering department (PHED) took out a march in support of their 5-point demands, including removing salary anomalies and payment for overtime pending since 2014. PHED Technical Employees Union led by Yash Pratap Singh submitted a memorandum to CMO's public grievances redressal secretary K K Pathak. "Each of our demands was discussed in detail and we were assured that these would be addressed soon," Singh told TOI.He added that if the demands remained unmet, the employees would stop working overtime and the government would be solely responsible if it led to crisis in water supply during the summers. "Technical employees' payment against overtime work was suddenly stopped in 2014, even though they had been getting it for past 30-40 years," said Singh.

Stay updated with all the Latest Jaipur headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.