The Remuneration Authority is the independent body set up by New Zealand Parliament to handle the remuneration of key office holders such as Judges, Members of Parliament, local government representatives, and some individual office holders and board members of independent statutory bodies.
The 7th Pay Commission, after its interaction with the authorities of Australia and New Zealand, feels that India should also have a permanent Remuneration Authority that should review the pay structure based on job roles evaluation, remuneration prevailing in the market for comparable job profiles, general working of the economy, etc. within a given budgetary outlay. With this, the pay structure could be revised periodically, at more regular intervals, say annually, without putting an undue burden on the public exchequer every ten years, as is the case now. Such a periodic review may have many possible fallouts: impact of revision of wages could be easily absorbed in each year’s budget and quicker remediation of anomalies would take place, leading to greater employee satisfaction. In the backdrop of annual revisions, the present system of biannual revision of DA could also be dispensed with.