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6th Pay Commission bonanza for govt staff The Sixth Pay Commission on Monday submitted its report to the government presumably recommending a 40 per cent hike in salary for the central government employees. The commission, headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, submitted its report to Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday morning. The recommendations of the commission, when accepted, would provide a bonanza to over 4.5 million central government employees. The commission was set up by government in 2006. The government has decided to merge 50 per cent of the Dearness Allowance (DA) in the basic pay of its employees and the recommendation would have an impact of substantial increase in salary. Although the finance minister had not provided for any specific allocation for the salary hike in the budget, he had stated that there was enough head-room. Earlier, a secretary-level official of the central government said recent reports about the expected increase in salaries were a bit over the top. "A senior secretary gets Rs 52,000 as monthly salary. I do not expect it to go up to more than Rs 60,000. Salaries of top officials will not be more than that of governors," the official said. Earlier this year, the Union Cabinet decided to double the salary of the President to Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) a month, even as the Vice-President's salary was raised from Rs 40,000 to Rs 85,000 and that of Governors' from Rs 36,000 to Rs 75,000 a month. The hike, which is with retrospective effect from January 2006, was necessitated by the fact that members of Parliament were drawing Rs 68,000, more than the Vice-President, who is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. Going by this order of precedent, the country's highest ranking bureaucrat -- the Cabinet Secretary -- cannot be paid more than Rs 75,000. The financial impact of the Sixth Pay Commission award has been estimated to be within 0.4 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), similar to the Fifth Pay Commission award of 1996. Given that the Budget has projected GDP at Rs 5,303,770 crore (Rs 53,037.70 billion) in 2008-09, the impact of the award may well be Rs 21,215 crore (Rs 212.15 billion).