7th Pay Commission Recommendations Cleared By Government

New Delhi: The recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission got the Cabinet nod on Wednesday, which will benefit over one crore government employees and pensioners.

The pay panel had recommended a 14.27 percent hike in basic pay — the lowest in 70 years. The previous 6th Pay Commission had recommended a 20 percent hike, which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008.

The recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission got the Cabinet nod today, which will benefit over one crore government employees and pensioners. 

The pay panel had recommended a 14.27 percent hike in basic pay — the lowest in 70 years. The previous 6th Pay Commission had recommended a 20 percent hike, which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008.

The pay panel had in November last year recommended 14.27 percent hike in basic pay at junior levels, the lowest in 70 years. The commission has recommended a minimum pay of Rs 18,000 per month, fixed an upper ceiling at Rs 2,25,000 per month for Apex Scale and Rs 2,50,000 per month for Cabinet Secretary and others at present at the same pay level. The date of implementation for the recommendations is January 1, 2016.

The previous sixth Pay Commission had recommended a 20 percent hike which the government doubled while implementing it in 2008. After considering the increase proposed in allowances, the hike in remunerations comes to nearly 24 percent. While the Budget for 2016-17 did not provide an explicit provision for implementation of the 7th Pay Commission, the government had said the once-in-a-decade pay hike for government employees has been built in as interim allocation for different ministries. A secretaries' panel, headed Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, has already vetted the seventh Pay Commission recommendation.

The total financial impact of implementing the pay commission recommendations in the 2016-17 fiscal is likely to be Rs 1,02,100 crore, as per government estimates. The pay panel also recommended 'one rank one pension' kind of set-up for the central government's all civil employees, Central Armed Police Forces as well as defence personnel to bring “parity between past pensioners and current retirees with the same length of service” who retired before January 1, 2016.