Eighth Pay Commission recommendations may be implemented from 2026, say sources

While addressing the house, Pankaj said that the Chairman of the 7th Pay Commission had “recommended that the matrix may be reviewed periodically without waiting for the long period of ten years.”

"ln order to compensate central government employees for erosion in the real value of their salaries on account of inflation, dearness allowances (DA) is paid to them and the rate of DA is revised periodically every six months on the basis of rate of inflation as per All lndia Consumer Price lndex for Industrial Workers released by Labour Bureau under the Ministry of Labour & Employment," he said.

The government had set up 7th Pay Commission in February, 2014. The recommendations of the panel were effective from January 1, 2016.

It must be noted that DA varies from employee to employee based on whether they work in urban sector, semi-urban sector or the rural sector.

The union government had increased the DA by 3 percent to 34 percent on March 31, 2022 for 47.7 lakh central government employees, and a hike in dearness relief was also announced for 68.6 lakh pensioners to provide some relief from inflation.