8th Pay Commission: A big update has come for central government employees and pensioners. The government has officially announced the 8th Pay Commission. However, the Finance Ministry has made it clear that there’s no current plan to merge dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) into the basic pay.
There was some buzz on social media and among employees that the government might add DA to the basic salary due to rising inflation. But the statement made in Parliament has now cleared up all those rumors.
Direct questions in Parliament – the government provided a straightforward answer.
On the very first day of the winter session of Parliament, MP Anand Bhadauria posed two significant questions.
Has the official notification for the 8th Pay Commission been issued?
Is the government thinking about including DA in the basic pay?
In response, Minister of State Pankaj Choudhary, representing the Ministry of Finance, confirmed that the notification for the 8th Pay Commission was released on November 3, 2025. The commission will be led by Justice Ranjan Prabha Desai (Chairperson), with Professor Pulak Ghosh (Part-Time Member), and Pankaj Jain (Member Secretary).
Rumors about merging DA and DR have been put to rest.
Recently, there has been a lot of speculation that increases in DA and DR might stop after 2026 and be included in the 8th Pay Commission. However, the government has clarified that there’s no such plan. This means that DA/DR will keep increasing every six months based on the AICPI-IW index. This is great news for employees and pensioners.
What will this mean for employees’ finances?
The government’s statement clearly indicates that DA and DR won’t be tied to basic pay for the time being. This means there won’t be any changes to basic pay. DA/DR will continue to rise every six months as usual. However, it’s worth noting that since basic pay won’t be increasing, pensions, PF (Provident Fund), HRA, and other allowances won’t be directly impacted, as they all rely on the basic pay.