Employees Clamour for Basic Pay, DA Merger as Interim Relief

The Union government has provided 18 months for the 8th CPC to examine and recommend changes in basic pay, allowances, benefits and service conditions for more than a crore of employees and pensioners.

Employee associations continue to push for interim relief ahead of the implementation of the 8th CPC. They reiterate that by the time the commission submits its report within the 18-month window set by the terms of reference (June-July 2027) the government’s arrears burden will have increased considerably.

They opine that merging dearness allowance (DA) with basic pay, crucial for determining the fitment factor, will greatly ease the burden of arrears. They demand that these pre-pay commission benefits be given as ‘interim relief’ before the commission submits its recommendation to the Centre in 18 months.

It may be noted that it has already been close to seven months since the government approved the terms of reference (ToR) for the 8th CPC.

Manjeet Singh Patel, the National President of the All India NPS Employees Federation, told The Secretariat if the final fitment factor is fixed at 2.0 (hypothetically), the government could first provide a 1.5-times revision by merging DA into basic salary and later pay only the remaining (0.5-times) portion as arrears after the commission’s recommendations.

He also argued that this would both reduce the government’s arrears burden and provide immediate financial relief to employees facing rising living costs driven by inflation, fuel prices, transport expenses and essential commodities.

“The government could ease their arrear burden to a great extent if interim relief is given now. This could serve as pre-pay commission benefits by merging DA with the basic pay,” Patel said, adding that other allowances, such as HRA and transport allowance could be adjusted after the merger.