Central employees having fun! HRA will increase like a rocket in the 8th Pay Commission, know how much your salary will increase after changing the fitment factor. – ..

By Samira Vishwas On Jul 11, 2026

There is a lot of agitation these days among central employees and pensioners regarding the 8th Pay Commission. The round of meetings with stakeholders and employee unions has been completed in Kolkata. In this meeting, the unions have strongly demanded not only increase in basic salary but also a bumper increase in the rates of House Rent Allowance (HRA). Since HRA is directly a fixed percentage of the basic pay, there will be a historic jump in the in-hand salary of the employees once the fitment factor is implemented.

Demand of employee organizations: HRA should be increased to 40%

At present, according to the rules of the 7th Pay Commission, cities have been divided into three categories X, Y and Z. After Dearness Allowance (DA) reaches 50% in January 2024, the current HRA rates are 30% (X city), 20% (Y city) and 10% (Z city) respectively. But in view of the skyrocketing rents in big cities, organizations like NC-JCM, AIDEF and FNPO have demanded increasing the HRA slab to 40% (X), 35% (Y) and 30% (Z). Whereas AINPSEF has proposed to increase it to 36%, 24% and 12% respectively.

The Complete Mathematics of Fitment Factor: How Will Your Money Grow?

HRA is always calculated on the minimum basic pay. At present, the minimum basic salary of a Level 1 employee working in Delhi (X category city) is ₹ 18,000, on which 30% HRA is available at ₹ 5,400. This math will completely change depending on the different fitment factors in the 8th Pay Commission:

At 2.0 Fitment Factor: The minimum basic salary will become ₹36,000 and the HRA at the rate of 30% will directly double to ₹10,800.
At 2.28 or 2.57 fitment factor: If the government approves these higher fitment factors, the salaries of employees from Level 1 to Level 10 will increase unexpectedly. For example, the house rent allowance (HRA) alone of an entry-level officer (level 10) posted in an X category city like Delhi can go up to ₹43,250 per month.

As soon as this change is implemented, there will be the biggest ever increase in the take-home salary of the employees, which will provide huge financial relief to crores of central employees and pensioners.