7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances to be proposed in this month

7th Pay Commission: Higher allowances to be proposed in this month

New Delhi: The Committee on Allowances will propose to increase allowances of central government employees, besides dearness allowance (DA) in this month.

DA is being paid to them with their pay packages.

The Committee on Allowances, under Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa, was formed in July 2016 following protests by government employees over recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission on allowances.

The 7th Pay Commission had recommended of abolishing 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances.

The committee was initially given four months time to submit the report to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Later, the Finance Minister extended the deadline for report submission to February 22, 2017.

The Committee on Allowances is yet to submit its report, the Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in Lok Sabha on March 10.

However, he said that the deliberations of the committee are in the final stages.

Besides the basic salary, a large portion of a central government employee’s salary is the house rent allowance (HRA); some changes are to be made in this category of the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission on allowances,

“The Committee on Allowances has decided against reducing the house rent allowance (HRA). The 7th Pay Commission suggested bringing down the HRA to 24 per cent, 16 per cent and 8 per cent respectively depending on type of cities,” the Finance Ministry’s officials said.

The officials also said that the Committee on Allowances would suggest, the HRA is to be kept as it was under the Sixth Pay Commission at 30 per cent, 20 per cent, and 10 per cent respectively.

The Committee on Allowances is likely to remain constant the Transport Allowance for central government employees as 6th Pay Commission recommendations including Dearness Allowance(DA), the sources added.

So, the employees now get all allowances except dearness allowance, according to the 6th Pay Commission recommendations until issuing of higher allowances notification.

The higher allowances most probably to implement from the month of April and the cabinet may give its nod in this month, the sources confirmed.

TST