A big relief news is coming for lakhs of central employees and pensioners across the country. The stir regarding the formation of the Eighth Pay Commission and its recommendations has intensified. The Commission is continuously holding meetings with various employee organizations and pensioners unions.
What is fitment factor and its complete mathematics?
The most important issue in this entire exercise is the fitment factor. Employee unions have been demanding for a long time that this time the fitment factor should be increased to 3.83. If the Central Government gives its approval to this demand, then there will be a jump in the salaries of the central employees which they would not have even imagined. There will be a huge increase in the amount coming into the accounts of everyone from the lower level to the officials holding high positions.
Fitment factor is considered the most important link in the recommendations of the Pay Commission. This is the fixed scale or coefficient on the basis of which the old basic salary is converted into the new revised basic salary. In simple words, when your existing basic salary is multiplied by the prescribed fitment factor, the new basic salary is decided. At the time of the Seventh Pay Commission, this figure was fixed at 2.57. As soon as it was implemented, the minimum basic pay of the employees increased from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000. Now if it is increased to 3.83 in the Eighth Pay Commission, then again a new record of salary increase can be created.
More than one crore employees and pensioners will get benefits
More than 1 crore people of the country will directly benefit from this big change in salary. This includes more than 50 lakh existing central employees and more than 65 lakh pensioners. The pension of retired employees is also determined on this basis, hence there will be a big increase in their monthly payments. In this era of inflation, employees have been looking for improvement in their salary structure for a long time. If this demand of fitment factor is accepted then it will prove to be a milestone in improving their standard of living.
There can be such a big jump in minimum basic salary
If the figure proposed by the employee unions gets the green signal from the government, then there will be a huge jump in the salaries of the lowest level i.e. Level 1 employees. At present the minimum basic salary is Rs 18,000. If calculated according to 3.83, this amount will directly increase to Rs 68,940. That means there will be a huge direct increase of Rs 50,940 in basic pay only. Along with this, other allowances like dearness allowance, house rent allowance will also be decided on the basis of this new basic salary, due to which there will be a tremendous increase in the total in-hand salary of the employees.
Complete salary equation from Level 2 to Level 10
With the new formula of Pay Commission, employees of different pay matrix levels will get huge benefits at different levels.
- The basic salary of Level 2 employees, which is currently Rs 19,900, can directly increase to Rs 76,217.
- Similarly, the basic pay of Level 3 employees will increase from Rs 21,700 to Rs 83,111.
- Talking about middle and higher level posts, the minimum salary of Level 4 employees is expected to increase from Rs 25,500 to Rs 97,665.
- In Level 5 this amount will increase from Rs 29,200 to Rs 1,11,836.
- Apart from this, the basic salary of Level 6 employees may increase from Rs 35,400 to Rs 1,35,582.
- For Level 10 officers, it may increase from Rs 56,100 to Rs 2,14,863.
Commission meetings continue, when will it be implemented?
The team of the Eighth Pay Commission is visiting different parts of the country and continuously discussing with the stakeholders. After completion of talks in Delhi, West Bengal, Ladakh and Uttar Pradesh, now the next important meeting of the Commission is proposed in Bengaluru. The commission will visit Bengaluru on October 7 and 8 and take suggestions from local organizations there. Usually, a new pay commission is implemented in the country every 10 years. If seen from this perspective, after the recommendations are prepared and the final approval is received from the government, there is a strong possibility that this new salary structure will become effective by the middle of the year 2027.