7th Pay Commission report: Five key innovative recommendations

Zee Media Bureau

In a big bonanza to 47 lakh central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners, the seventh Pay Commission has recommended a 23.55 percent increase in salary, allowances and pension along with a virtual one-rank-one-pension for civilians.

Here are the 5 innovative recommendations of 7th Pay Commission report:

New Pay Structure: Considering the issues raised regarding the Grade Pay structure and with a view to bring in greater transparency, the present system of pay bands and grade pay has been dispensed with and a new pay matrix has been designed. Grade Pay has been subsumed in the pay matrix. The status of the employee, hitherto determined by grade pay, will now be determined by the level in the pay matrix.

Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP): Performance benchmarks for MACP have been made more stringent from “Good” to “Very Good”.

The Commission has also proposed that annual increments not be granted in the case of those employees who are not able to meet the benchmark either for MACP or for a regular promotion in the first 20 years of their service.

Allowances: The Commission has recommended abolishing 52 allowances altogether. Another 36 allowances have been abolished as separate identities, but subsumed either in an existing allowance or in newly proposed allowances. Allowances relating to Risk and Hardship will be governed by the proposed Risk and Hardship Matrix.

Performance Related Pay: The Commission has recommended introduction of the Performance Related Pay (PRP) for all categories of Central Government employees, based on quality Results Framework Documents, reformed Annual Performance Appraisal Reports and some other broad Guidelines. The Commission has also recommended that the PRP should subsume the existing Bonus schemes.

Revised pension formulation: Without calling it one-rank-one-pension (OROP), the Pay Commission recommended a revised pension formulation for the central government employees, including para-military personnel as well as for defence staff who have retired before January 1, 2016.