Eighth Pay Commission
Central employees and pensioners are waiting for the implementation of the Eighth Pay Commission. Now the government has constituted the 8th Pay Commission and its official notification has also been issued. The job of this commission is to completely review the current salary, allowances and facilities of the central government employees. The commission will have to submit its recommendations to the government within 18 months. This will directly impact the pockets of lakhs of families.
What will be new this time?
This time the government wants that the salary should not be increased only on inflation or seniority, but should also be decided on the basis of performance. This means that employees who perform well can get more benefits. However, experts say that it will not be easy to implement performance based salary in the government system, because the responsibility and nature of work of every employee is different.
Experts believe that the government can bring an incentive scheme, in which additional bonuses or benefits are given on the basis of annual performance. But the basic salary structure will remain the same for everyone.
How will the salary expert formula increase?
The most important among the recommendations of the Pay Commission is the fitment factor, through which the basic salary is decided. At present the minimum basic salary is ₹ 18,000 and DA (dearness allowance) of 58% is added to it. That means the current total salary comes to around ₹ 28,440.
If the new commission keeps the fitment factor at 2.0, your basic could go up to ₹36,000. This means that those who currently have ₹ 18,000, their salary will almost double. Experts believe that the factor can range between 1.83 to 2.46. If it goes up to 2.46, then an increase of up to 55% in salary is possible. Apart from this, HRA, travel allowance and medical allowances will also increase as per the new basic. That means there will be a big jump not only in basic but also in total income.
Who will benefit?
The 8th Pay Commission is not limited to central employees only. Its scope will include industrial and non-industrial employees of the Central Government, members of the Defense Forces, officers of All India Services (IAS, IPS), employees of Union Territories, audit department and judicial service personnel.
There is hope of relief for pensioners also. The Commission will review both the NPS (National Pension System) and the old pension system. Especially for NPS people, gratuity and death benefit rules can be improved. At present, employees are hopeful that as soon as the recommendations of the 8th Pay Commission are implemented, they will see a tremendous increase in their salaries.