8th Pay Commission : The 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC) has begun work. It may take 12-18 months to submit its recommendations. However, central government employees and pensioners want the recommendations implemented quickly. They are requesting this from the government. Now it remains to be seen whether this happens or whether central government employees and pensioners will be disappointed. The 7th Pay Commission was also recommended to implement the revised pay structure quickly, but this did not happen.
The 7th Pay Commission was constituted in 2014, and its recommendations came into effect on January 1, 2016. Its term expires in 2026. Typically, the central government constitutes a pay commission every 10 years to revise the salaries of its employees. State governments also revise their employees’ salaries based on the Central Pay Commission.
Why did the 7th CPC reject the request?
Central government employees and pensioners are represented by the Joint Consultative Machinery-Staff Side (JCM-Staff Side)/Pensioners’ Associations in Pay Commission negotiations. Several JCM-Staff Side associations had demanded that the 7th Pay Commission’s recommendations be implemented from January 1, 2014. They argued that not merging DA into basic pay had significantly reduced the value of salaries. They also demanded that salary revisions be conducted every five years, not every ten years.
But the 7th CPC rejected the demands. It said, “This Commission was constituted in the year 2014, much before the completion of 10 years of implementation of the 6th CPC recommendations. Therefore, its recommendations will be available for consideration on January 1, 2016, before the completion of the 10-year period of the 6th CPC. But the Commission does not agree with the demand for early implementation of the changed pay structure and recommends that the date of implementation of the 7th Pay Commission should be January 1, 2016.”
In such a situation, it is now anticipated that the recommendations of the 8th Pay Commission will not be implemented soon, but will be implemented as scheduled. However, the government may provide some relief. The winter session of Parliament is scheduled to begin on December 1, 2025. During this period, questions and answers related to the 8th Pay Commission will also be closely monitored.
DA and DR should be merged into basic pay
Unions of central government employees and pensioners are still demanding that the current dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) be merged with the basic pay. This is because the current DA rate is proving insufficient to mitigate the impact of actual retail inflation. Meanwhile, several employee unions and pensioner groups have expressed displeasure over the lack of a clear mention of pension reforms in the 8th Pay Commission’s Terms of Reference, and the lack of a date for the implementation of the Commission’s recommendations.