7th Pay Commission: Panel on allowance yet to take a decision; govt employees have to wait further?

New Delhi: With the second part of the Budget session kicking off from Thursday, expectations are widely rising that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will make key announcements on allowances.

However, a report in the Business Standard says that the Panel which was formed to study and submit its report in allowances recommended by the  7th Pay Commission is yet to come to a decision.

The panel headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa met last Friday but is “unable to reach a conclusion”, BS report said.

The Budget session continue till April 12, and a few media reports say that with Jaitley's announcement coming during the session, central government employees can expect to get revised allowances from the new fiscal in April.

But considering the fact that the panel has still not made any concrete decision regarding allowances, government employees might have to wait beyond April for the implementation of revised allowances.

It may be recalled that 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 was 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% theHRA 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.