7th Pay Commission: Five recommendations that will bring cheer to govt employees

The government is likely to consider the panel's recommendations on the 7th Pay Commission on Wednesday. The much awaited 7th Pay Commission will hike the salaries 4,8 million government employees and 5.5 million pensioners.

The recommendations on the panel report has been submitted by the Committee of Secretaries headed by Cabinet Secratary P K Sinha to the Finance Ministry and the approval by the Cabinet is expected as early as June 29, according to a Business Standard report.

The recommendations will lead to an additional burden of Rs 1.02 lakh crore or nearly 0.7% of the GDP, said the report.

The Government of India has allocated Rs 70,000 crore for the implementation of 7th Pay Commission for government employees in the Union Budget 2016-17.

Apart from this, Rs 28,450 crore will be allocated from the Railway Budget, said the report.

Some of the recommendations to the 7th Pay Commission include:

1. Hike in pay of entry-level employees: It has been recommended to be increased to Rs 18,000 per month from current Rs 7,000.

2. Increase in allowances and salaries: The basic salary hike recommended is 16%. The hike in housing rent allowance recommended is 138.71%, other allowances by 49.79% and pensions by 23.63%, according to the report.

3. Health insurance: It has been recommended to introduce health insurance scheme for government employees and pensioners.

4. Salary hike for military personnel: The starting salary of the army's entry level has been raised to Rs 21,700 a month from Rs 8,460 per month. While the salary of a lieutenant general has been raised to above Rs 2,00,000 per month.

Military service pay (MSP) for military officers has been raised from Rs 6,000 to Rs 15,500 per month and for junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and other ranks from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,2000 per month, said the report.

5. Pension, compensation and gratuity for civil, defence and paramilitary employees: It has been recommended that the ceiling of gratuity be raised to Rs 20 lakh from Rs 10 lakh for civil, defence and paramilitary employees. Apart from this, a slab-based system has been recommended in case of disability to an employee in the line of duty and revision of the rates of lump-sum compensation to the kin in case of death of civil, defence, paramilitary employee.