7th Pay Commission: Central government employees to get higher allowances from May 1?

New Delhi: If all goes on the expected lines, the high-level committee on 7th Pay Commission will submit its final report on payment of allowances to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley this week.

As per media reports, if the final report is submitted on the stipulated time and the report gets cabinet nod by end of the month, then government employees can expect higher allowances from May 1.

The Union Cabinet on June 29 cleared the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission headed by AK Mathur in respect of the hike in basic pay and pension. However, the decision on 7th Pay Commission suggestions relating to allowances has been referred to a Committee headed by the Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa.

The 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) had recommended HRA at the rates initially from 24%, 16%, and 8 % and whenever DA reaches 50% it will be increased to 27%, 18% and 9%, The panel also said that s and when the DA reaches 100% the HRA will be revised to 30% , 20% and 10% for X,Y and Z cities respectively .

The pay commission also recommended doing away with 53 of the 196 allowances and merging a few others.

It is also reported that the committee has proposed to abolish 52 allowances, and subsume 36 allowances into existing allowances or proposed as new one. 12 Allowances are reported to have been proposed to be retained without changes, while the rest of the allowances have been tweaked little.