- IRTSA has demanded a 5-graded fitment factor from the 8th Pay Commission.
- This fitment factor will vary according to the post and responsibility of the employees.
- There is a proposal to increase the basic salary from 192% to 338% for higher posts.
- The argument is to remove pay discrepancy and make government jobs attractive.
8th Pay Commission: Indian Railway Technical Supervisors Association (IRTSA) has placed a big demand for its employees before the 8th Pay Commission. Under this, Railways has demanded a 5-graded fitment factor based on pay matrix instead of a uniform one for all employees. That is, the demand to implement different fitment factors for different levels of employees. Under this formula, the basic salary of officers and technical staff holding higher positions can increase by 192% to a maximum of 338%.
What is the complete calculation of 5-graded fitment factor?
Under the 7th Pay Commission, there was a uniform fitment factor of 2.57 for all. In contrast, IRTSA has proposed to fix five different multipliers according to the responsibilities of the posts.
- Level 1-5: 2.92
- Level 6-8: 3.50
- Level 9-12: 3.80
- Level 13-16: 4.09
- Level 17-18: 4.38
Not only this, IRTSA has also suggested a new cadre structure and starting salary for Railway Technical Supervisors. It is something like this:-
- Junior Engineer (Level-7) Rs 1,57,400
- Senior Section Engineer (Gr-B, Level-8) Rs 1,66,800
- Assistant Manager (Gr-B, Level-9) Rs 2,01,600
- Manager (Gr-B, Level-10) Rs 2,13,000
- Senior Manager (Gr-A, Level-11) Rs 2,57,000
What is the logic of Railways?
The Railway Association argues that due to the previous pay commissions, the difference in the salary of senior supervisors and the employees working below them had reduced significantly. Many times a supervisor gets the same salary as the employee working under him. The fitment factor of 4.38% will remove this discrepancy.
Apart from this, a big salary hike has been proposed for top level engineers and other big posts in Railways so that the salary of government jobs also remains attractive as compared to the private sector. Apart from this, the organization has made many other demands like automatic merger of DA with basic salary, annual salary growth of 5% etc.
Also read:
Employee Unions Talks: 8th Pay Commission takes necessary steps, will visit Bhubaneswar, Odisha

