7th Pay Commission update: Government may hike Central govt employees' salaries soon

7th Pay Commission: In a post-Diwali gift the NDA government is likely to raise the salaries of its employees soon.

The government is seriously considering taking a decision in this regard which if it comes through will benefit nearly 50 lakh central government employees.

A final decision in this regard is expected to be taken in November. The government, however, has not yet made any formal announcement in this context, according to a report in Zee Business. Meanwhile, it recently raised the Dearness Allowance (DA) of central government employees from 12% to 17% effective from July.

The government employees have for long been demanding the government to increase their minimum salary and fitment factor, as mentioned by the news site. According to them, the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) salary was not inflation-adjusted and the price rise rendered the benefits received from the pay hike useless.

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The announcement benefitted around 50 lakh employees and 65 lakh pensioners. This was the highest DA raise by the government in recent years, according to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar.

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The central government had earlier increased the minimum pay of its employees to Rs 18,000, but, they a Rs 26,000 pay and a scale up of the fitment factor from 2.57 times to 3.68 times. However, the government has not yet attended to the employees' demands.

DA is a cost of living adjustment allowance - adjusted in line with inflation to compensate for price rise - that is calculated as a fixed percentage of a person's basic salary or pension. It is pegged to the All India Consumer Price Index (Industrial Workers). India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are reportedly the only countries where government employees are given such an allowance.

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