Team Blitz India
GANGTOK: To boost the population of indigenous communities in Sikkim, the state government has decided to provide advance and additional increments to its employees having two or three children with retrospective effect from January 1 this year, according to a notification.
The state government employees possessing Sikkim Subject Certificate of Identification shall get one advanced increment for having two surviving children, the Department of Personnel Secretary Rinzing Chewang Bhutia said in a notification issued on May 10.
Those employees having three surviving children shall get one additional increment, he said, adding anyone of the spouses can claim for advance increment on mutual understanding.
The scheme shall be effective from January 1, 2023 and only those employees whose second and third child is born on or after January 1, 2023, shall be eligible for the scheme, Bhutia said.
The scheme providing financial incentives to state government employees has come four months after Sikkim Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang promised sops to overcome a low fertility rate among local indigenous people in the Himalayan state.
Sikkim is the least populous state of India with a population of around seven lakh people. Its Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 1.1, which is the lowest in the country.
