7th Pay Commission: Government tells Parliament that decision on allowances will be taken soon

Seventh Pay Commission committee is likely to take decision on allowances soon. 

In a reply to a question Lok Sabha, on March 10, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal, said that the committee has not submited its report to the government but the deliberations of the committee are in the final stages. 

In late June last year, after implementing the CPC proposals on salary and pension for the central government’s 4.7 million employees, Jaitley had announced the Lavasa panel would examine the suggestions on allowances. 

The panel had time till October to give the report but that got delayed.

Lavasa panel's examination of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations on allowances given to the government employees has been unable to reach a conclusion in its last meeting held on March 3.

It was earlier reported that the panel would submit its recommendations to the government’s political leadership soon and the Centre could announce revised allowances any time after March 11, the day of counting the votes for the five Assembly polls, and probably before the second half of the Budget Session of Parliament ends. That timeline now seems doubtful.

According to The Business Standard report, of 196 allowances, the CPC report had recommended abolition of 52 and subsuming of another 36 into larger existing ones. 

There are other recommendations on allowances which the panel led by Lavasa has been tasked with examining. 

The recommendations include a change in the present system of accounting, wherein pay and allowances are clubbed and it is difficult to bifurcate these. The CPC recommended a separate object head for budgeting and accounting be used to record the expenditure.