8th Pay Commission: It’s been making headlines for the past month. On November 3, the government released its Terms of Reference (ToR), which has sparked a lot of questions among employees and pensioners. On December 1, during the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament, a question was raised in the Lok Sabha about this issue.
MP Anand Bhadoria inquired whether the government has officially announced the 8th Pay Commission and if there’s any plan to combine DA with the basic pay to help with the rising inflation. In response, the government confirmed the commission’s formation but clearly stated that merging DA and basic pay is off the table.
Government’s response in Parliament
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary mentioned that the 8th CPC was established through a gazette notification on November 3, 2025. This three-member commission includes Justice Ranjan Prakash Desai as the chairperson, Professor Pulak Ghosh as a part-time member, and Pankaj Jain as the member-secretary. However, when asked about merging DA and DR with basic pay, he said the government has no current plans for that. This means the old system of revising DA/DR based on AICPI-IW every six months will remain in place. As a result, many employee groups are feeling let down.
Why are employees and pensioners upset?
After the ToR was released, employee unions raised multiple concerns. The main issue is that this time the ToR doesn’t specifically mention pensioners, unlike the 7th Pay Commission, which did. Unions argue that this diminishes the potential for pension revisions. Additionally, the ToR doesn’t clarify when the new pay structure will take effect.
Will it start on January 1, 2026, or at a different time? Moreover, the staff side, the JCM, claims the government left out their requests—like a formula for setting minimum wages, addressing wage compression issues, and principles for wage revision—from the ToR. Unions argue that the wording used is…
The 8th Pay Commission is kicking off its data collection, chatting with departments, and asking unions for their input during its 18-month period. But there’s a lot of frustration about the ToR, which suggests that employee unions are going to speak up more in the next few months. Meanwhile, the government’s firm stance against meeting demands like combining DA with basic pay has left employees even more anxious, especially with inflation being so high for the last two years. Typically, 2026 is when a new pay commission’s recommendations get put into action, so expect the topic of the 8th Pay Commission to be a hot topic for discussion in the near future.