7th Pay Commission: Enhanced pay hike and arrears from January onwards

The armed forces it may be recalled were pressing for reverting to the percentage based system to calculate disability pension.

An enhanced pay hike is on the way following the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. Instructions have been issued to disburse the revised pay as well as the arrears in May's salary to the Army, Navy and Indian Air Force personnel.

It may be recalled that the Union Cabinet had cleared the recommendations made by the 7th Pay Commission. The government had enhanced the pay package following the clearance by the Cabinet.

Revised pay from current month

As per the decision the defence personnel will get an enhanced pay from the current month itself. Officials say that the cabinet accepted certain demands made by the three services including the restoration of an earlier system of disbursing disability pension. General instructions were issued separately to disburse the revised pay as well as arrears in May's salary. The revised pay would be given in the current month's salary itself as per the instructions issued.

With effect from January 2016

The revised pay will be in effect from January 26 onwards. This was recommended by the 7th Pay Commission. The 7th Pay Commission recommendations had not been implemented as the three services had said that there were certain anomalies. The government however took into account these concerns. It was decided to continue with the earlier system of disbursing disability pension and not to adopt to the new recommendations as made by the 7th Pay Commission.

Percentage based regime

The armed forces it may be recalled were pressing for reverting to the percentage based system to calculate disability pension. They had strongly opposed the slab-based system that was proposed by the 7th Pay Commission.

Non-Functional Upgrade

The armed forces had also raised other issues. These included the issue of the Non-Function Upgrade. This issue is yet to be addressed. The NFU was one of the key demands made by the Armed forces. Under the NFU scheme, officers in the central group A-category get automatic time-bound promotions. The pay hike under NFU scheme is independent of of organisational requirements as well as vacancy.

Who gets what

The recommendations approved would include an extension of pay stages for JCSs and other ranks from 24 to 40 to prevent stagnation, increase in index of rationalisation for Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels from 2.57 to 2.67 and extension of pay stages for Brigadiers by two.

Two recommendations on the pension front were also approved apart from the restoration of the percentage-based disability pension and an additional option for pension by pay fixation method in addition to the consolidation method, whichever is higher. The instruction stated that the revised pay with arrears will be credited likely by the end of this month.

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