8th pay commission
These days, a question is being discussed a lot among central government employees and pensioners. Will the government add the existing Dearness Allowance (DA) to the basic salary before the implementation of the 8th Pay Commission? This question is arising because the period of 7th Pay Commission has ended on 31 December 2025. Now the DA increase for January-June 2026 will be the first revision which will be outside the scope of the 7th Pay Commission. At the same time, the work of 8th Pay Commission has started, but it may take a lot of time for its implementation.
Why the delay in implementation of 8th Pay Commission?
Usually any pay commission takes about 18 months to submit its report. After this, the process of considering the report, cabinet approval and implementation takes at least 6 more months. In such a situation, it is believed that it is difficult to implement the recommendations of the 8th Pay Commission before the end of 2027. Meanwhile, the employee organizations are demanding that till then, as a relief, the existing 58% DA should be merged into the basic pay.
Government’s clear answer
No proposal to merge DA. However, the government is very clear about this demand. In a written reply given in Parliament in December 2025, the government had said that there is no proposal under consideration to merge the existing DA with basic pay. The government says that to reduce the impact of inflation, DA/DR is increased every six months, which is based on AICPI-IW (Inflation Index), and this is sufficient for now.
Why do employee organizations want DA merger?
- Basic salary will increase by adding DA to basic salary.
- With this, HRA, TA and other allowances will also increase automatically.
- There will be direct benefit in pension calculation also
- Current DA does not show the true picture of inflation
- For this reason they are demanding to implement it as interim relief.
What happened before?
At the time of 5th Pay Commission, the rule was that when DA reached 50%, it should be added to the basic. On this basis, 50% DA was merged into basic in 2004. But the 6th Pay Commission disagreed with this thinking. The Commission said that if DA is merged into basic, then the base of inflation index will have to be changed, due to which the DA rate may reduce in future. Therefore, the Commission clearly said that it will not be recommended to merge DA with basic pay.
Now what next?
In the current situation, there seems to be very little possibility of DA being merged with basic pay. The government’s stand is clear. Until the 8th Pay Commission is implemented, employees and pensioners are expected to get relief only from the DA increase every six months.