7th Pay Commission: Govt May Announce Higher Allowances Tomorrow

Date : 23.5.2017

7th Pay Commission: Govt May Announce Higher Allowances Tomorrow

New Delhi: Top sources in the Finance Ministry have told The Sen Times on condition of anonymity that the government may announce higher allowances under 7th Pay Commission tomorrow.

They told that the Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha is going to place the recommendations of higher allowances in front of the Cabinet on Wednesday.

BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi on Monday also said in a TV programme that the allowances of 7th Pay Commission would be met soon.

The government implemented the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission from January 1, 2016 in respect of basic pay and dearness allowances, other allowances continued to be paid at old rates.

The 7th Pay Commission had recommended that of a total of 196 allowances, 52 be abolished altogether and 36 be abolished as separate identities by subsuming them in another allowance, which triggered resentment among central government employees that governments complied with formation of the Committee on Allowances headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa to review it.

The Committee on Allowances had time till October’ 2016 to give the report but this got delayed.

Later, the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley extended the deadline for report submission to February 22, 2017.

The ‘Committee on Allowances’ finally submitted its report to Jaitley on April 27.

The report is being currently examined by the Empowered Committee of Secretaries (E-CoS) to firm up the proposal for approval of the Cabinet.

The 7th Pay commission had recommended abolition of or subsuming of allowances like acting, assisting cashier, cycle, condiment, flying squad, haircutting, rajbhasha, rajdhani, robe, shoe, shorthand, soap, spectacle, uniform, vigilance and washing.

It also recommended slashing the House Rent Allowance (HRA) from 30, 20 and 10 per cent to 24, 16 and 8 percent of the Basic Pay for Class X, Y and Z cities respectively.