7th Pay Commission for Central Government Employees, when to expect it

The VI Central Pay Commission has come and gone and now the Central Government Employees are looking forward to the VII CPC.  In most likely scenario, the Commission to foresee and prepare the VII CPC will be appointed by the Government before going to the Polls in 2014.  This Commission in all probability will be chaired by a retired Judge of Supreme Court.

The Government employees are surfing the net in search of any news of the 7th Pay Commission.  It has to be mentioned here that any news or pay scales available on the net are false and misleading.  Please bear in mind that nobody has the authority or expertise to foresee what the pay commission will formally grant to the Central Government employees.  Therefore any such news or payscale given on the net is false and based on pure hypothesis.

Many of employees have a single question, will the 7th CPC be implemented?  The answer for that is Yes, why because the Pay Commissions are implemented by an ordinance of the Government of India and as per the present laws, it is imperative on the ruling Government, whosoever is in power to formulate the Pay structure of the Central Government employees including the Defence and the Railways every 10 years.

To understand the implementation of any pay commission, we have to understand the politics of India.  The civilian employees constitute 35 lakhs voters in electoral rolls, add to this another 70 lakhs plus from the defence and railways.  No political party has the will and the wherewithal to overlook such kind of numbers of future voters.  

Announcing a commission for pay is imperative on the ruling Government, the implementation of the the commissions report is not!  The implementation of Pay commission is usually done in co-ordination by the Finance Ministry, the Law Ministry. the Human Resources Development Ministry and the DOPT.  The previous two pay commissions were implemented when the ruling Government looked like loosing the majority in the house of the Parliament.  In 1998 when Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's NDA was in serious threat of loosing majority and polls loomed large, the NDA announced the Vth CPC.  Similarly when the general elections were due in 2008 and the UPA I was going to the polls with shaky majority, the VIth CPC was announced.

If you study the trend, a commission for pay related matters of Central Government is generally constituted 2 years before the actual date of implementation.  The previous pay commission was set up by the Government in October 2006, under the chairmanship of Justice B.N.Srikrishna with a time limit of 18 months.  It was implemented on 24th March 2008.  Similarly the 5th CPC was constituted in 1994 under the chairmanship of Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian and it was implemented in October 1997 and the elections were held in September, 1999. 

If you look carefully at the past history of Pay commission, you will find some co-relation between the general elections and the pay commission.  The General Elections were due in April 2009 and for 6 months prior to that, any government can't issue any changes in policy matters due to Code of Conduct.  So, the UPA I Government decided to implement it in March 2008.  

This brings me to deduce that the 7th CPC may be constituted by the present UPA-II Government before the 2014 General Elections.  The implementation will however be a question for the future government in place in 2016.

Why are the 7th Pay Scales reported on the net false :

The Pay commission arrives on a pay structure by adding your (basic + interim relief + grade pay) X the fitment benefit which the Cabinet approves.  The fitment benefit for VI CPC was 1.86 % (Justice Srikrishna had proposed a fixation benefit of 1.74 but the Government increased it to 1.86).  

So simply put the revised pay for VII CPC will be whatever your basic will be on 1.1.2016 + the grade pay + DA you get X the fixation benefit.  However I expect the fitment benefit to be from 2 to 2.20 based on the past record of pay commissions not 3% as the websites are referring to. 

So don't be mislead by any site on the web which give you any pay scales.  No site has any legal entity or any authority to pronounce the rates however beautifully or imaginatively the website may be named.  I know it sounds pretty cool to learn that you will be getting 30K+ basic in the next Pay Commission  as opposed to the 10K+ basic you are getting now, but expectation can only disappoint you.  And remember the VII pay commission will be announced no matter what anybody says.  The dates may be obscure but the implementation is certain.

Please post your comments and queries on VII pay commission here and I will try to answer them.  I have posted a followup article please read it here

Vijay Prabhu

Read my followup article for the effects of Karnataka elections on setting up of 7th Pay Commission

The 7th Pay Commission has been approved by the Indian Government and the retirement age is likely to be extended to 62 years.  Kindly read the full post here.