While the Centre has stated that there is no proposal under consideration to constitute the 8th Pay Commission for government employees, sources told CNBC TV18 on August 10 that the pay panel may be set up two years later with the intent to implement its recommendations from 2026.
The government sources, while speaking to the news channel, said it was premature to ask the Finance Ministry at this point of time whether the 8th Pay Commission would be constituted.
"Pay panels are set up two years prior to the rollout of recommendations. Hence, it's premature to ask about it in 2022. The government will decide on the 8th pay panel at an appropriate time," the sources were quoted as saying.
The government set up the 7th Pay Commission in 2014, and its recommendations came into effect from January 2016 onwards.
The pay commissions are, notably, set up once in 10 years to recommend the government on changing the pay structure and scale of its employees.
On August 8, while responding to a question in the Lok Sabha on whether the government was considering the setting up of 8th Pay Commission, the Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Choudhary, said: "No such proposal is under consideration with the government for constitution of 8th Central Pay Commission for the central government employees."
The chairman of the 7th Pay Commission, Justice (retd) AK Mathur, had recommended that the pay matrix "be reviewed periodically without waiting for the long period of 10 years"," Chaudhary stated in his reply.
"ln order to compensate central government employees for erosion in the real value of their salaries on account of inflation, dearness allowances (DA) are paid to them and the rate of DA is revised periodically every six months on the basis of the rate of inflation as per All India Consumer Price index for Industrial Workers released by Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour & Employment," the MoS Finance added.
After a freeze during the COVID-19 period, the Centre hiked the DA for employees. On March 31, 2022, it was further raised by 3 percent to 34 percent for more than 47 lakh central government employees. A 3 percent hike in dearness relief was also announced, which was to benefit the 68.6 lakh pensioners.
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