6th Central Pay Commission

The 6th Central Pay Commission was the pay review body constituted by Government of India Resolution No. 5/2/2006-E.III(A) dated 5 October 2006 under the chairmanship of Justice B. N. Srikrishna, a retired judge of the Supreme Court, which reported on 24 March 2008. Its recommendations, as modified by the Government, took effect from 1 January 2006 and were notified as the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008 through G.S.R. 622(E) dated 29 August 2008. It replaced the pay scales of the 5th Central Pay Commission with four running pay bands and a grade pay attached to each post, abolished Group D, and set the minimum pay at Rs. 7,000 a month.

Most of the numbers the 6th CPC is remembered by are the Government’s, not the Commission’s. The Commission recommended fixing pay at basic pay plus dearness allowance at 74%, a multiple of 1.74; the notified rules use 1.86. It recommended a minimum of Rs. 6,660; the Government notified Rs. 7,000. It recommended an annual increment of 2.5%; the rules prescribe 3%. It recommended Pay Band-1 starting at Rs. 4,860 and Pay Band-4 starting at Rs. 39,200; the notified figures are Rs. 5,200 and Rs. 37,400. Attributing the notified structure to the Commission is the most common error made about this pay commission, and it matters because the fitment factor of 1.86 is the figure every 2006 pay fixation still turns on.

The 6th CPC is the direct predecessor of the structure in force today, and much of the current framework is a reaction to it. The pay-band-and-grade-pay system compressed 35 standard pay scales into a simpler spine, but the disputes it generated, above all over grade pay, are what the 7th Central Pay Commission cited when it abolished grade pay entirely and replaced the bands with a single pay matrix from 1 January 2016. Its terminal dearness allowance of 125% on 1 January 2016 is also the figure that produced the 7th CPC fitment factor of 2.57.

This article sets out the Commission’s constitution and composition, the modifications the Government made before notification, the four pay bands and the -1S scale, the grade-pay structure and how each grade pay was computed, the 1.86 fixation and a worked example, the gap between the 2006 effective date and the 2008 payout, the abolition of Group D, the annual increment and the uniform 1 July date, dearness allowance and the allowances built on the new pay, military service pay, the pension changes, the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme, the recommendations that were never implemented, the anomalies, the cost, and how the structure gave way to the pay matrix. Load-bearing figures are drawn from the Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission, the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008 and the governing orders.

Constitution, composition and tenure

The 6th Central Pay Commission was constituted by Government of India Resolution No. 5/2/2006-E.III(A) dated 5 October 2006, with a tenure of 18 months expiring on 4 April 2008. It submitted its report to Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on 24 March 2008, 11 days before that window closed. Two amending resolutions widened the remit: the resolution of 7 December 2006 brought in members of regulatory bodies set up under Acts of Parliament other than the Reserve Bank of India, and the resolution of 8 August 2007 brought in the officers and employees of the Supreme Court.

The Commission had four members, not three. Justice B. N. Srikrishna chaired it. Prof. Ravindra Dholakia of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad was a member, supplying the economics. J. S. Mathur, formerly Additional Secretary in the Department of Expenditure, was a part-time member. Sushama Nath was Member-Secretary.

That four-member shape is not the standard one. The 5th Central Pay Commission had three, Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian with Prof. Suresh D. Tendulkar and M. K. Kaw as Member Secretary, and the 8th Central Pay Commission constituted by Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025 also has three, Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai with Prof. Pulak Ghosh and Member-Secretary Pankaj Jain. What has held across all of them is a retired Supreme Court judge in the chair and an academic economist alongside.

Unlike its predecessors, the 6th CPC was given a remit that went past pay. Its terms of reference asked it to recommend measures to transform central government organisations into modern, professional and citizen-friendly entities, which is why its report carries chapters on organisational structure, delayering and delegation that have nothing to do with a pay scale.

Modifications the Government made before notification

The Government accepted the 6th CPC report on 29 August 2008 “subject to some modifications”, and those modifications changed every headline figure. The table below sets the Commission’s recommendation against what was notified in the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008.

Three of these are load-bearing beyond 2008. The multiple of 1.86 governs every 2006 pay fixation and every concordance table used to revise an old pension. The grade-pay rationalisation is why the pay matrix has 18 levels rather than the roughly two dozen the Commission’s own list of grade pays implied. And Pay Band-4 moved the other way from the rest: the Government lowered its floor from Rs. 39,200 to Rs. 37,400 while raising the floors of Pay Band-1 and Pay Band-2, which pulled senior Group A entry pay down relative to what the Commission had proposed and is one root of the defence-forces grievance about relative placement.

The four pay bands and the -1S scale

Every post below the apex scales was placed in one of four running pay bands, each a broad salary range, with a separate holding scale below them and fixed scales above. The figures below are as notified in the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008, in rupees per month.

The -1S scale carried four grade pays and is routinely described as carrying none. Table 2.2.2 of the 6th CPC report attaches Rs. 1,300 to the pre-revised S-1 scale, Rs. 1,400 to S-2, Rs. 1,600 to S-2A and Rs. 1,650 to S-3, all within the -1S range of Rs. 4,440 to 7,440. What was true of -1S is something else: the report directs that it “is not to be counted for any purpose”, because no fresh recruitment was to be made to it and everyone in it was to be moved into Pay Band-1. It was a scale on the way out, not a scale without grade pay.

The three top rungs are fixed figures with no range, because there is no progression above them. The Higher Administrative Grade and everything above it carried no grade pay at all; pay in those brackets moved by the 3% annual increment within the range. The Commission recommended a maximum of Rs. 80,000 at the level of Secretary and equivalent, giving a minimum-to-maximum ratio of 1:12, and recommended a separate higher scale of Rs. 90,000 for the Cabinet Secretary and equivalent.

Grade pay and how it was computed

Grade pay fixed a post’s place in the hierarchy, and it was computed by formula, not by judgement. Paragraph 2.2.21 of the report sets the rate at 40% of the maximum of the basic pay of the pre-revised 5th CPC scale, rounded up to the next multiple of Rs. 100. Where two or more pre-revised scales were merged, the maximum of the highest of them was taken. The report adds that in some cases the amount was adjusted to keep a clear differential between successive grade pays.

The formula is checkable against the pre-revised scales. The S-4 scale topped out at Rs. 4,400, and 40% of that is Rs. 1,760, which rounds up to the Rs. 1,800 grade pay. The S-7 scale topped out at Rs. 6,000, giving exactly Rs. 2,400. The S-15 scale topped out at Rs. 13,500, giving exactly Rs. 5,400. The S-21 scale topped out at Rs. 16,500, giving exactly Rs. 6,600. This is why the 5th CPC’s S-1 to S-34 numbering did not disappear in 2006: it is embedded in the grade pay values, and it still surfaces in the concordance tables used to revise the pension of anyone who retired on those scales.

One feature of the notified table became the most contested element of the whole structure. The grade pay of Rs. 5,400 appears in both Pay Band-2 and Pay Band-3. Two employees on the same grade pay could therefore sit in different bands on different pay, and a promotion that moved the band without moving the grade pay produced disputes over the resulting fixation. That single overlap generated a large share of the anomaly cases described below, and it is the reason the pay matrix has both a Level 9 and a Level 10 carrying grade pay Rs. 5,400.

The 1.86 fixation, with a worked example

Pay was fixed in two steps: pre-revised basic pay multiplied by 1.86 and rounded up to the next multiple of Rs. 10 gave the pay in the band, and the grade pay of the post was then added on top. The 1.86 multiple absorbed the basic pay, the 50% dearness allowance merged into pay as dearness pay in 2004, and the 24% dearness allowance accrued on that combined base, so the conversion preserved purchasing power before the grade pay was added.

The arithmetic is visible in the notified band floors. The pre-revised S-9 scale began at Rs. 5,000, and Rs. 5,000 multiplied by 1.86 is Rs. 9,300, exactly the notified Pay Band-2 floor. Under the Commission’s 1.74 the same figure gives Rs. 8,700, exactly the floor it had recommended. The two band tables are the same table computed at two different multiples.

Take an employee on a pre-revised 5th CPC basic pay of Rs. 10,000 whose grade mapped to a grade pay of Rs. 4,200 in Pay Band-2. The pay in the band is Rs. 10,000 multiplied by 1.86, which is Rs. 18,600. Adding the grade pay of Rs. 4,200 gives a revised basic pay of Rs. 22,800, on which dearness allowance, house rent allowance and the rest were then computed. Every fixation followed those two steps, and Table 2.2.2 of the report gave the resulting figure for every stage of every pre-revised scale so that a drawing and disbursing officer did not have to compute it.

Minimum pay under the notified structure was Rs. 7,000 a month, the Pay Band-1 floor of Rs. 5,200 plus the lowest grade pay of Rs. 1,800. The Commission’s own figure was Rs. 6,660, being Rs. 4,860 plus Rs. 1,800, which it reached by the need-based method: Rs. 5,479 computed on the 15th Indian Labour Conference norms of the Aykroyd formula, enhanced by about 22% for the skill factor arising from the merger of Group D into Group C. The Government raised the band floor to Rs. 5,200 to reach a round Rs. 7,000. The minimum pay article traces the same method forward to the 7th CPC’s Rs. 18,000.

The 2006 effective date and the 2008 arrears

Revised pay was effective from 1 January 2006 but drawn only from September 2008, so the first 32 months of the revision were paid as arrears. The report came on 24 March 2008, the Government accepted it on 29 August 2008, and the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008 were notified the same day as G.S.R. 622(E). Revised allowances did not share the retrospective date: they ran prospectively from 1 September 2008, on the Commission’s own recommendation.

The arrears were paid in two instalments. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008 restricted the first instalment to 40% of the aggregate arrears, computed after deducting the enhanced subscription to the General Provident Fund and to the National Pension System on the revised pay, with the balance 60% released in 2009-10. Staggering the payment across two financial years spread the one-time outgo over two budgets.

That divergence between an effective date and a payment date is standard, and it is why the 8th CPC’s eventual effective date is expected to precede its payout. Under Rule 6 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008 an employee had to exercise a written option to come onto the revised structure, in the format prescribed in the Second Schedule, which is the same opt-in mechanism the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 later reproduced.

Abolition of Group D

The 6th CPC abolished Group D. The Commission recommended that no future recruitment be made to the grade, that Group D employees who already held the minimum prescribed qualifications be placed in the Pay Band-1 running band straightaway, and that the rest be suitably retrained and then upgraded and placed in Group C. This is the reason the -1S scale existed at all: it was the holding place for the pre-revised S-1, S-2, S-2A and S-3 scales while their occupants were retrained out of it.

The change reshaped the classification of the entire civil service. The erstwhile Group D posts became the Multi-Tasking Staff cadre sitting in Level 1 of the present pay matrix, and classification now runs purely on pay level: under Department of Personnel and Training notification S.O. 3964(E) dated 9 August 2018, Levels 1 to 5 are Group C, Levels 6 to 9 are Group B and Levels 10 to 18 are Group A. There is no Group D to be classified.

It also changed how minimum pay is computed, and that consequence outlived the 6th CPC. Because the abolition of Group D left no unskilled post anywhere in the central government, the lowest post had to be priced as a skilled one, which is where the 25% skill factor in the minimum pay computation comes from. The 6th CPC introduced it on that reasoning and the 7th CPC carried the same 25% forward under paragraph 4.2.8 of its report, so a figure that is often read as a 7th CPC innovation dates from 2008.

The annual increment and the uniform 1 July date

The annual increment under the 6th CPC was 3% of the sum of pay in the pay band and grade pay, notified in Rule 10 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008. The Commission had recommended 2.5%. The 3% rate has survived two pay commissions unchanged and is the rate at which each cell of the present pay matrix steps down from the one above it.

The larger change was the date. Before 2006 an increment fell on the anniversary of the employee’s appointment or last increment, so increments were scattered across the calendar and every office ran its own increment register. The 6th CPC recommended, and the rules adopted, a single date: from the year following implementation the increment falls on 1 July for every employee, with those who have completed six months or more in the post as on that date eligible. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008 sets out the transitional treatment, under which an employee whose next increment fell due on 1 January 2006 drew it in the pre-revised scale and had pay fixed after including it.

The annual increment works the same way today with one addition: the 7th CPC kept the 3% rate and the uniform-date principle but created two dates, 1 January and 1 July, under Rule 10 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, with an employee’s date fixed by when the appointment fell. One increment recommendation was dropped altogether. The Commission proposed a variable increment for Group A officers in Pay Band-3, under which 80% or more of the grade would draw the normal 2.5% while high performers, not exceeding 20%, would draw 3.5%, and advised extending the scheme to Pay Band-1 and Pay Band-2. It was never notified, and the increment has remained a flat entitlement.

Dearness allowance under the 6th CPC

Dearness allowance under the 6th CPC was a percentage of basic pay, meaning pay in the band plus grade pay, revised twice a year on 1 January and 1 July. It was computed from the 12-month average of the All-India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers on the 2001 equal to 100 base, measured against a base index of 115.76, that being the average index for the 12 months of 2005. The formula subtracts 115.76 from the 12-month average, divides by 115.76 and multiplies by 100. It is the exact analogue of the 261.42 base used for the 7th CPC structure.

The Commission made two recommendations about the index that were not acted on. It asked that the base year of the Consumer Price Index be revised as frequently as feasible, and it suggested that the National Statistical Commission formulate a separate consumer price index for government employees. Neither happened; dearness allowance is still computed on the industrial-workers index, and the base year moved only once, from 2001 to 2016 in October 2021, with a linking factor of 2.88.

Over the decade the structure was in force, dearness allowance climbed from 0% on 1 January 2006 to 125% on 1 January 2016. That terminal figure matters well beyond the 6th CPC: it is the dearness allowance the 7th Central Pay Commission had to neutralise. Merging basic pay with a dearness allowance of 125% gives a multiple of 2.25, which combined with a real increase of about 14.29% produced the fitment factor of 2.57. The high 6th CPC dearness allowance is the direct reason the 7th CPC fitment was as large as it was, and the current dearness allowance of 60% is why the figures projected for the 8th CPC are smaller.

House rent allowance and the X, Y, Z classification

The X, Y and Z city classification came from the Government at implementation, not from the Commission. The 6th CPC recommended keeping the existing lettered classification and only raising the rates: retain the existing rate for A-1 cities, raise A, B-1 and B-2 cities to 20%, and raise C and unclassified cities to 10%. The Government collapsed those five classes into three, X taking the former A-1 cities, Y the former A, B-1 and B-2 cities and Z the former C and unclassified cities, with rates of 30%, 20% and 10% of basic pay.

That three-class structure and those three rates carried into the 7th CPC framework and are the house rent allowance slabs in force today, having reverted to 30%, 20% and 10% on 1 January 2024 when dearness allowance crossed 50%. The city classification for HRA article carries the current lists.

Other allowances

The 6th CPC recommended that the existing rates of most allowances be doubled for civilian employees and the defence forces alike, and it rebuilt several individually. Reimbursement of children education allowance rose from Rs. 50 to Rs. 1,000 per child per month for up to two children, and hostel subsidy from Rs. 300 to Rs. 3,000 a month. City Compensatory Allowance was subsumed into transport allowance, whose rates were raised four times over and keyed to grade pay and city, with dearness allowance payable on top. Travel entitlements moved to reimbursement on actuals.

The most durable of these is a mechanism rather than a rate. The Commission recommended that all fixed allowances be made inflation-proof, with automatic revision whenever the dearness allowance payable on the revised pay bands rose by 50%, and that transport allowance rise every year with the increase in dearness allowance. That indexation is why a fixed-slab allowance today rises by 25% each time dearness allowance climbs a further 50%, a rule the 7th CPC restated in paragraph 8.10.66 of its report and which last operated on 1 January 2024. The allowances article sets out which allowances move on which trigger.

The Commission also subsumed dearness pay. When 50% of dearness allowance was merged into basic pay as a distinct element in 2004, it counted as pay for retirement and most other benefits; once the revised pay absorbed it in 2006, dearness pay ceased to exist as a separate component and has not been recreated since.

Military service pay for the defence forces

The 6th CPC introduced military service pay as a distinct element of defence pay, in recognition of the peculiar conditions of service of the armed forces. It was payable to all personnel up to the rank of Brigadier and equivalent, and it counted as pay for all purposes except increments, a carve-out that matters because it keeps the element out of the 3% annual increment base. Defence personnel were otherwise placed in the same running pay bands and grade pay as civilians.

The Commission recommended Rs. 6,000 a month for officers, Rs. 4,200 for Military Nursing Service officers and Rs. 1,000 for personnel below officer rank. The service chiefs objected that the last figure was inadequate and asked for Rs. 3,000. The Government retained the officers’ rate and settled the other-ranks rate at Rs. 2,000, one of the modifications announced on 29 August 2008. The Commission also recommended that only two trade groups be retained for personnel below officer rank, with the former trade groups Y and Z merged, and an X Group Pay of Rs. 1,400 a month for those in trade group X.

Military service pay carried into the 7th CPC as a separate element on top of the defence pay matrix, at Rs. 15,500 a month for service officers. Its introduction in 2008 is the origin of the distinct defence pay structure that now runs parallel to the civilian pay matrix, and it remains one of the points on which the armed forces engage every pay commission, including the 8th Central Pay Commission.

Pension under the 6th CPC

The 6th CPC delinked full pension from 33 years of qualifying service, and that is its most consequential pension change. It recommended that pension be paid at 50% of average emoluments or last pay drawn, whichever is more beneficial, without linking it to 33 years of service for the grant of full pension. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum F. No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A) dated 2 September 2008 gave effect to it, so an employee retiring on superannuation with the minimum 10 years of qualifying service draws the full 50% rather than a proportionately reduced figure. The 33-year figure survives only as the maximum service counted for gratuity.

Four other changes came from the same report. Additional pension for older pensioners was introduced, rising in steps on attaining the ages of 80, 85, 90, 95 and 100 years, from 20% of basic pension at 80 to 100% at 100. The retirement gratuity ceiling rose to Rs. 10 lakh, later doubled to Rs. 20 lakh by the 7th CPC and raised to Rs. 25 lakh from 1 January 2024. Enhanced family pension on death in harness was extended to 10 years, against the seven years that had applied before. And constant attendant allowance for disabled pensioners was raised five times over to Rs. 3,000 a month.

The Commission also recommended that the fitment formula for serving employees be extended to existing pensioners and family pensioners, which is the principle of parity that governs how a pre-2006 pension was re-fixed against the revised structure, and it recommended revising the commutation table. The commutation table was in fact revised with effect from 2 September 2008, and the revised table remains in force today.

The 6th CPC decade also ran two pension regimes side by side. The defined-benefit central government pension covered those recruited before 1 January 2004, and the contributory National Pension System covered those recruited on or after it. That divide is still live for the 8th CPC, which is the first Commission to sit after the Unified Pension Scheme came into force on 1 April 2025.

The Modified Assured Career Progression scheme

The 6th CPC introduced the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme, effective from 1 September 2008, to address pay stagnation where promotional avenues were blocked. It grants three financial upgradations, on completion of 10, 20 and 30 years of service, moving the employee to the next grade pay in the hierarchy without a change of post. It replaced the Assured Career Progression scheme, which had given two upgradations at 12 and 24 years.

The design point that became the grievance is which higher pay the employee gets. MACP grants the next grade pay in the sequence of grade pays, not the grade pay of the next promotional post, and in cadres where the two diverge the upgradation is worth less than the older scheme would effectively have tracked. Staff associations argued that career progression had been made less rewarding in specific ladders even as upgradations became more frequent. The Supreme Court settled the question on 5 March 2020 in the Government’s favour, holding that the level granted is the next level of the matrix.

The scheme survived into the 7th CPC, applied to the levels of the pay matrix rather than to grade pays, and it is now governed by the consolidated guidelines in Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 35034/3/2015-Estt.(D) dated 22 October 2019, which supersede and restate the founding order of 19 May 2009. A separate 6th CPC recommendation produced non-functional upgradation, implemented by Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) dated 24 April 2009 with effect from 1 January 2006, under which an officer of an Organised Group A Service draws the pay of a higher grade when an Indian Administrative Service batch two years junior reaches that grade at the centre.

Recommendations that were never implemented

Several of the 6th CPC’s structural proposals were accepted in the report and then never notified, and the gap between the report and the rules is wider here than for any other pay commission. The Performance Related Incentive Scheme is the largest. The Commission recommended a budget-neutral scheme paying employees a pecuniary remuneration over and above pay, replacing the ad-hoc bonus immediately and eventually the productivity-linked bonus. Neither bonus was replaced, and both still operate.

The holidays recommendation went the same way. The Commission proposed that government offices close only on the three national holidays, that all other gazetted holidays be abolished, and that restricted holidays rise from two to eight a year in compensation, while the five-day week continued. The gazetted holiday list survives intact.

Three others lapsed. The merger of the Secretariat and stenographer cadres, under which all future Secretariat recruitment would have been as Executive Assistants requiring graduation and a one-year computer diploma, was not carried through. The replacement of risk allowance by risk insurance did not happen; the risk and hardship matrix of the 7th CPC took a different route. And the new medical insurance scheme, optional for existing employees and pensioners and compulsory for new ones, was never launched, leaving the Central Government Health Scheme as the main cover.

Two recommendations for women employees did survive, and they are among the 6th CPC’s most used legacies. It recommended special leave for child care and maternity leave enhanced to 180 days. Child care leave now runs to 730 days across a career under Rule 43-C of the CCS (Leave) Rules, and maternity leave is 180 days.

Anomalies and criticism

The 6th CPC is remembered as much for its anomalies as for its reform, and the grade pay of Rs. 5,400 appearing in two pay bands is the single largest source of them. Because a post could carry that grade pay in either Pay Band-2 or Pay Band-3, employees on identical grade pay sat on different pay, and fixation on a promotion that changed the band without changing the grade pay produced disputes over seniority and relative pay. These went in large numbers to the National Anomaly Committee.

Bunching was the second source, and the Commission anticipated it. Its report records that bunching would occur in Pay Band-1 with grade pay Rs. 1,800 precisely because all the erstwhile Group D posts were being placed there, and it allowed one extra increment wherever two or more stages of a pre-revised scale collapsed to a single level in the revised band. That relief did not close the question, and stepping-up claims, in which a senior sought parity with a junior fixed higher, continued through the decade.

The MACP scheme drew its own criticism on the next-grade-pay design described above. Taken together, the volume and persistence of grade-pay and pay-band disputes formed an explicit part of the case the 7th Central Pay Commission made for abolishing both and replacing them with a single pay matrix, in which every post is one level and every salary a printed cell, leaving no separate grade pay to dispute.

Financial impact and coverage

The Commission priced its own report at Rs. 12,561 crore for 2008-09, against savings of Rs. 4,586 crore expected from the measures it proposed, giving a net financial implication of Rs. 7,975 crore for that year, plus a one-time burden of Rs. 18,060 crore on the payment of arrears. Those are the Commission’s figures for the Commission’s scheme.

They do not price what was actually notified. The Government raised the fixation multiple from 1.74 to 1.86, lifted the Pay Band-1 and Pay Band-2 floors, raised the minimum pay to Rs. 7,000, raised the increment from 2.5% to 3% and doubled the other-ranks military service pay, and it implemented none of the savings measures that the Rs. 4,586 crore depended on. The outgo therefore ran above the report’s estimate, and the arrears alone were spread across 2008-09 and 2009-10 for that reason.

The revision covered the central government’s civilian and defence employees together with its pensioners and family pensioners. The Commission’s own remit covered roughly 35 lakh civilian employees and more than 30 lakh pensioners, alongside the defence forces, members of the All India Services and the officers and employees of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. The scale of the outlay is why a pay commission is a fiscal event as much as an administrative one, and why the terms of reference of every Commission, including the 8th, require it to weigh its recommendations against the Government’s capacity to pay.

From the 6th CPC to the 7th and 8th

The 6th CPC structure governed central government pay from 1 January 2006, in payment terms from September 2008, until the 7th Central Pay Commission took effect on 1 January 2016. The transition folded the pay bands and the grade pays into the levels of the pay matrix, converted pay with the 2.57 fitment factor, and neutralised the 125% dearness allowance the structure had accumulated. Grade pay disappeared as a separate figure, surviving only as the label by which each matrix level is still identified.

The mapping is not one level per grade pay. The 14 distinct grade pays of the four regular pay bands became 15 columns, because the Rs. 5,400 grade pay existed in both Pay Band-2 and Pay Band-3 and split into Level 9 and Level 10, and because grade pay Rs. 8,900 became Level 13A. The four scales that carried no grade pay at all became the top four columns: the Higher Administrative Grade is Level 15, HAG+ is Level 16, the apex scale of Rs. 80,000 is Level 17, and the Cabinet Secretary’s Rs. 90,000 is Level 18. The result is 18 numbered levels printed in 19 columns.

The 8th Central Pay Commission, constituted by Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025 under Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, continues the roughly decadal cadence, with the 6th CPC effective from 2006 and the 7th from 2016. Its 18-month window expires on 3 May 2027 and it has fixed no effective date, no fitment factor and no minimum pay. The 6th CPC is the key to reading that lineage, and it carries one lesson directly applicable to the next revision: the figures a commission recommends and the figures a government notifies are not the same figures, and it is the second set that reaches a pay slip.

Related Articles

• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• 5th Central Pay Commission
• Central Pay Commission
• Central government employees in India
• Pay matrix
• Pay band
• Grade pay
• Fitment factor
• Minimum pay
• Annual increment
• Index of rationalisation
• Pay fixation
• Multi-Tasking Staff
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• Non-functional upgradation
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Dearness allowance
• Dearness pay
• Dearness relief
• AICPI-IW
• House rent allowance
• City classification for HRA
• Transport allowance
• Children education allowance
• Hostel subsidy
• Allowances for central government employees
• Military service pay
• Central government pension
• Qualifying service
• Additional pension for old age
• Family pension
• Constant attendant allowance
• Gratuity for central government employees
• Commutation of pension
• National Pension System
• Old Pension Scheme
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Concordance table
• Child care leave
• Maternity leave
• Ad-hoc bonus
• Productivity-linked bonus
• Performance Related Incentive Scheme
• Risk and hardship allowance
• Central Government Health Scheme
• All India Services
• Take-home salary of central government employees
• Department of Expenditure
• Department of Personnel and Training
• 7th CPC salary calculator

External references

• Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission, Highlights (Department of Expenditure)
• Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008, pay fixation and arrears
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• The Gazette of India

References

1. Government of India Resolution No. 5/2/2006-E.III(A) dated 5 October 2006 constituting the Sixth Central Pay Commission, as amended by the resolutions of 7 December 2006 and 8 August 2007.
2. Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission, submitted 24 March 2008, paragraph 2.2.21 and Table 2.2.2, for the fixation at basic pay plus dearness allowance at 74%, grade pay at 40% of the maximum of the pre-revised scale, and the bunching increment.
3. Report of the Sixth Central Pay Commission, Highlights, for the recommended pay bands and grade pays, the minimum of Rs. 6,660, the 2.5% increment and the 1 July date, the abolition of Group D, the military service pay rates, and the cost estimate of Rs. 12,561 crore gross and Rs. 7,975 crore net for 2008-09 with Rs. 18,060 crore of arrears.
4. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2008, notified as G.S.R. 622(E) dated 29 August 2008, prescribing the pay bands, the grade pay, the fixation multiple of 1.86 and the 3% annual increment.
5. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 29 August 2008, accepting the recommendations subject to modifications.
6. Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008, on fixation of pay and payment of arrears, restricting the first instalment to 40% of the aggregate arrears.
7. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum F. No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A) dated 2 September 2008, delinking full pension from 33 years of qualifying service and revising the commutation table.
8. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 35034/3/2008-Estt.(D) dated 19 May 2009 on the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme, consolidated in Office Memorandum No. 35034/3/2015-Estt.(D) dated 22 October 2019.
9. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. AB.14017/64/2008-Estt.(RR) dated 24 April 2009, on non-functional upgradation for Organised Group A Services.
10. Department of Personnel and Training, notification S.O. 3964(E) dated 9 August 2018, classifying posts by pay level into Groups A, B and C.
11. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, submitted 19 November 2015, on the transition from pay bands and grade pay to the pay matrix and the 2.57 fitment factor.