7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances announcement soon

7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances announcement soon

New Delhi: Central government employees are waiting almost seven months to receive higher allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations in their paychecks. Senior Finance Ministry sources say the government is expected to make the announcement of higher allowances after five states assembly polls.

The central government employees received higher basic pay in August 2016 with arrears, effective from January 1, 2016 on the recommendations of the 7th pay commission but the hike in allowances other than dearness allowance has yet to materialize.

The 7th Pay Commission recommendations have wrapped up, in June last year, but the central government employees still waiting for payments owed them i.e higher allowances.

The delays are because the allowances other than dearness allowance referred to the ‘Committee on Allowances’ headed by the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa for examination as the pay commission had recommended of abolishing 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances.

The Committee on Allowances was initially given a time of four months to submit its report to the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

In October last year, Ashok Lavasa was quoted by some media outlets as saying he was ready with the report.

However, the committee was later given an extension till February 22, 2017 to submit its report on the pretext of demonetisation and the government said that the cash crunch was the reason behind the delay in announcing higher allowances.

According to some reports, the government is likely to give its nod to the revised allowances once the Assembly elections in five states are over. The revised allowances are expected to be effective from April 1, which marks the beginning of the new financial year.

The sources said the Committee on Allowances report states the current HRA slab, which is 30 per cent of basic pay, for metros. An announcement on the same is expected soon.

However, the pay commission had recommended reducing the house rent allowance (HRA) to 24 per cent of basic pay as against the 30 per cent of basic pay employees were drawing under the Sixth Pay Commission.

TST