7th Pay Commission: Allowance committee to hold "crucial" meeting today

The committee on allowances under 7th Pay Commission will be holding meeting today to decide on the higher allowances. The representatives of National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) are also likely to join the committee.

NJCA is a joint body of unions representing central government employees.

In June last year, after the implementation of 7th Pay Commission, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the formation of Lavasa panel , to examine the suggestions on allowance. 

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Till now, the Lavasa panel and the central government employees' unions have held 13 meetings so far. As per India.com report, which quoted Shiv Gopal Mishra, National Convenor, NJCA, saying that in today's meeting, the committee will take some major decisions. 

On April 3, India.com in a report had mentioned that NJCA has told cabinet secretary that the employees must get their hiked pay under the 7th Pay Commission and that the higher allowances must be given as arrears from January 2016. 

January 2016 is when the 7th Pay Commission was implemented. 

Earlier, the Lavasa committee was expected to submit the report in October, but since then it got delayed. There are more than 56 lakh employees who will be getting higher allowances under 7th Pay Commission. 

ALSO READ: 7th Pay Commission: Employees ask for arrears from January 2016

The committee is yet to submit the report on House Rent Allowance (HRA) to the government. As reported by Zeebiz earlier, under the 7th Pay Commission, HRA should be paid at the rate of 24%, 16% and 8% of the new Basic Pay, depending on the type of cities while unions demanded HRA at 30, 20 and 10%. 

Moreover, there were media reports which said that the committee has already submitted the report to Finance Ministry. But, on March 10, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, cleared the rumours by stating that no report has been submitted to the government but the deliberations of the committee are in the final stages.