8th CPC
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Pay Commission history and the 8th CPC method

Eight commissions in eighty years, the fitment factor each one settled on, and the four-step arithmetic this site uses to project 8th CPC pay.

Illustrative figures using sample pay-matrix data. The 8th CPC has not been officially notified — fitment factors shown are projections for planning purposes only.

Every Central Pay Commission since 1946

Each commission has reset pay, allowances and pension for roughly 48 lakh serving central government employees and 67 lakh pensioners. The fitment factor is the number everyone remembers, because it is the single multiplier that converts old basic pay into new basic pay.

CommissionEffective fromChairpersonWhat changed
1st CPC1 January 1946Justice Srinivas VaradachariarLaid down the first pay scales, ₹55 at the bottom to ₹2,000 at the top, and introduced the living-wage principle for the lowest grade.
2nd CPC1 August 1959Jaganath DasLifted the minimum to ₹80 and settled the doctrine that the lowest grade must never fall below a minimum living wage.
3rd CPC1 January 1973Raghubir DayalMinimum pay ₹185. Brought in the need-based minimum wage idea and treated HRA and City Compensatory Allowance as separate heads.
4th CPC1 January 1986P. N. SinghalMinimum pay ₹750. Collapsed a sprawl of scales into 36 running pay scales with annual increments.
5th CPC1 January 1996Justice S. Ratnavel PandianMinimum pay ₹2,550 and a roughly 30% jump. Its proposal to cut the government workforce by 30% was never acted on.
6th CPC1 January 2006Justice B. N. SrikrishnaSwapped 36 scales for four Pay Bands plus Grade Pay, with an effective fitment factor of 1.86, and floated a performance-linked incentive scheme.
7th CPC1 January 2016Justice A. K. MathurReplaced Pay Band and Grade Pay with the Pay Matrix of 19 levels by 40 cells, fixed the fitment factor at 2.57 and reset HRA to 24/16/8 per cent.
8th CPC1 January 2026 (target)Justice (Retd.) Ranjana Prakash DesaiConstituted 3 November 2025, report due around May 2027. Fitment factor still open; the range being argued over is 1.82x to 2.86x.

Fitment factor scenarios on the table

FactorReal hike over the merged baseWho is arguing for it
1.82x~14% real hikeFinance Ministry's likely opening bid — it repeats the 7th CPC's 14.29% top-up over the DA merge
1.92x~20% real hikeThe number quoted most often in the press; mildly conservative
2.08x~30% real hikeConfederation of Central Government Employees — their middle position
2.28x~42% real hikeNational Council (JCM) staff-side submission
2.57x~61% real hikeThe optimistic reading: repeat the 7th CPC's headline multiplier
2.86x~79% real hikeMaximum staff demand, argued from the Aykroyd need-based wage formula

A factor is not a percentage hike. At 1.92x the basic pay nearly doubles on paper, but most of that jump is the 60 per cent DA you already receive being rolled into basic. The genuinely new money is only the part above the 1.60x merge.

The HRA staircase after a new commission

StageX cityY cityZ city
New commission starts, DA back to 0%24%16%8%
Once fresh DA crosses 25%27%18%9%
Once fresh DA crosses 50%30%20%10%

The 19 cities that qualify for higher Transport Allowance

Transport Allowance has two slabs. Posted in one of these notified cities you draw the higher rate; posted anywhere else you draw the lower one. Every X-class HRA city is on this list, and no Z-class city is.

DelhiGreater MumbaiKolkataChennaiBengaluruHyderabadPuneNagpurAhmedabadSuratJaipurLucknowKanpurGhaziabadIndorePatnaKochiKozhikodeCoimbatore

How an 8th CPC salary estimate is actually built

The 7th CPC did not invent its numbers; it followed a sequence that every commission since the second has broadly repeated. Applying that same sequence to the 7th to 8th transition is what produces a defensible estimate rather than a guess.

Step 1 — freeze the picture at the reference date

The 7th CPC worked from 1 January 2016, when DA on 6th CPC pay had reached 125 per cent. The Cabinet-approved Terms of Reference point the 8th CPC at 1 January 2026, when DA on 7th CPC pay was 60 per cent. Later DA instalments do not change this anchor, because the revision applies retrospectively from the reference date even though the money arrives much later.

Step 2 — merge DA into basic pay

Basic plus DA at the reference date becomes the new base. That gave a merge multiplier of 2.25 in the 6th to 8th transition and gives 1.60 this time. Nobody is better off at this step; it is pure relabelling of money already in hand.

Step 3 — add the real hike

The 7th CPC added about 14.29 per cent over the merged base, which is how 2.25 became a headline 2.57. The size of this top-up for the 8th CPC is the only genuinely open question, and it is a negotiated outcome between staff federations pushing for 30 to 80 per cent and a Finance Ministry watching the fiscal deficit.

Step 4 — reset DA and reprice the allowances

DA restarts at zero, HRA drops to 24/16/8 per cent with floors scaled by the fitment factor, and Transport Allowance and CGHS subscriptions move with the merge multiplier rather than the fitment factor. NPS stays at 10 per cent employee and 14 per cent employer, and CGEGIS stays at ₹120, ₹60 and ₹30.

How much confidence to place on the output

Treat every projection as directional, comfortably within a 15 per cent band either way. The method is sound and the allowance behaviour is well documented, but the final fitment factor and any structural redesign — merged pay levels, a revised insurance scheme, new allowance heads — stay unknown until the Department of Expenditure notifies the report. Useful for planning, not for signing a loan agreement.

Calculation formula

Merge multiplier = 1 + DA at reference date = 1 + 0.60 = 1.60
New basic = old basic x fitment factor
Real hike % = (fitment factor / 1.60 - 1) x 100
New HRA = max(new basic x 24/16/8%, old floor x fitment factor)
New TA = old TA x 1.60 (plus fresh DA on TA)
Net in-hand = basic + DA + HRA + TA - (NPS 10% + CGHS + CGEGIS + tax)

Frequently asked questions

Related calculators

Salary calculatorFitment factor tableDA calculatorArrears calculatorPension calculator

Orders and notifications behind these numbers

Pay matrix and fitment
  • CCS (Revised Pay) Rules 2016, notified 25 July 2016, carrying the 7th CPC pay matrix and the 2.57 fitment factor.
  • Department of Expenditure OM No. 1-6/2016-IC dated 28 September 2017, which corrected the Level-13 index from 2.57 to 2.67 (Cell 1 moving from ₹1,18,500 to ₹1,23,100).
  • PIB release of 16 January 2025 announcing Cabinet approval for the 8th CPC, and the Gazette notification of 3 November 2025 constituting it.
Dearness Allowance
  • Department of Expenditure DA orders and circulars — current rate 60% with effect from 1 January 2026.
  • DoE OM No. 1-1/2016-E.II(B) dated 2 August 2016, the precedent for resetting DA to zero on a new commission's pay.
House Rent Allowance
  • DoE OM No. 2/4/2017-E.II(B) dated 7 July 2017 — HRA at 24/16/8 per cent with floors of ₹5,400 / ₹3,600 / ₹1,800 and automatic revision at the 25% and 50% DA marks.
  • HRA has been at 30/20/10 per cent since DA crossed 50 per cent in 2024.
Transport Allowance
  • DoE OM No. 21/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 7 July 2017 — ₹7,200 for Level 9 and above, ₹3,600 for Levels 3 to 8, ₹1,350 for Levels 1 and 2 below ₹24,200 basic, each plus current DA, in the 19 notified cities.
  • The 19-city list carries forward from DoP&T OM No. 2(13)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008.
CGHS, CGEGIS and NPS
  • Ministry of Health OM No. Z.15025/13/2018/DIR/CGHS dated 9 January 2018 — subscriptions of ₹250, ₹450, ₹650 and ₹1,000 by level band.
  • CGEGIS premium stays at ₹120, ₹60 and ₹30 for Groups A, B and C; the 7th CPC's proposed increase was deferred.
  • Cabinet decision of 6 December 2018, effective 1 April 2019, raising the government's NPS Tier-I contribution from 10% to 14%, with the employee share unchanged at 10%.

Working out your own figures? Open the salary calculator and pick the scenario you want to test.