Mumbai, Oct 6: Over 1.5 lakh officers and other employees of the central revenue services will go on a day's token strike on December 3 to protest against the fifth central pay commission's recommendations. This will be followed by an indefinite strike, which is likely to commence during the last week of December.

This was announced at a meeting held by the joint convenors of the Co-ordination Committee of the Federations of the Central Revenue Staff, Shankar Biswas and KKN Kutty at Mumbai on Monday.

The committee represents central revenue staff in the three departments, income tax, central excise and customs. Officers of the rank of superintendents (Group B) to sepoys (Group D) will be on strike on December 3 seeking review of the pay panel's recommendations relating to their salary grades.

The union finance ministry had passed a resolution on September 30, which now stands notified and covers the government's decision on the pay panel's recommendations.

The committee has decided to press for higher pay scale per month for the three groups of staff: Group B (superintendents of I-T, excise and customs) - Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500 Group C (inspectors and similar rank of the three services) - Rs 6,500 to Rs 10,500 and Group D (sepoys, peons amongst others) - Rs 2,750 to Rs 4,400 According to Kutty, these three demands are aimed at attaining pay parity with counterparts iun the central services.

While for Group B staff in the revenue services, the government has notified a pay scale of Rs 6,500 to Rs 10,500, in case of deputy central intelligence officers in the Intelligence Bureau, who are considered of the same rank, the scale accepted by the government is of Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500.

Even in the case of the Delhi-Andaman-Nicobar police (Danips) and Delhi-Andaman-Nicobar civil service (Danics), where officers are recruited by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), and are employed in the same grade, the recommendation is on the higher side, Biswas said.

When the revenue staff agitated against the discrimination, the government decided to refer the case of the staff of Danips and Danics to the fast track committee comprising of senior secretaries, and their decision is yet to be delivered, he added.

However, in the case of revenue staff, the government has already notified the pay scales and so there is no scope for any further revision. The possibility of revision exists only if the employees agitate for parity with their counterparts in other departments/ministries, Kutty said.

Similarly, for Group C staff in the revenue service, the pay scale accepted by the government is Rs 5,500 to Rs 9,000. But their counterparts in the telecom and postal departments have been put in the pay scale of Rs 6,500 to Rs 10,500. Before the fifth pay panel report, these employees were in the single grade of Rs 1,640 to Rs 2,900.

The Group D staff comprising of peons and sepoys in the revenue services who were earlier in the pay scale of Rs 775 to Rs 1,025 alongwith the sepoys in the central paramilitary forces, have now been discriminated against the latter. While the latter have been put under the revised pay scale of Rs 2,750 to Rs 4,400, the former have been put under the scale of Rs 2,610 to Rs 3,540.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.