Ad-hoc Bonus (Non-Productivity Linked Bonus)

The non-productivity-linked ad-hoc bonus is the flat 30-day Diwali bonus for Group C and non-gazetted Group B central staff, capped at Rs. 6,908 a year.

Updated 17 July 2026 · Reviewed by Salary-Calculator.in

The non-productivity-linked bonus, universally called the ad-hoc bonus, is a flat annual bonus paid to Group C and all non-gazetted Group B central government employees who are not covered by any Productivity Linked Bonus scheme, at 30 days of emoluments in recent years, computed on a monthly emoluments ceiling of Rs. 7,000. It is sanctioned by the Ministry of Finance through an annual Office Memorandum and paid before Diwali, and for an employee earning above the ceiling it comes to Rs. 6,908.

This article covers the ad-hoc bonus in its own right: what makes it ad-hoc and non-productivity-linked, who receives it and who is left out, the flat 30-day figure and how the Rs. 7,000 ceiling and the 30.4-day divisor turn it into Rs. 6,908, the eligibility and pro-rata rules, the separate and lower treatment of casual labour, the way the bonus is extended to autonomous bodies on their own funding, its character as an ex-gratia payment rather than a statutory right, the tax position, and the standing demand to raise the ceiling.

The ad-hoc bonus is the counterpart, for the bulk of the central government workforce, of the productivity bonus that the Railways and a few other departments receive. Between them the two schemes cover almost every non-gazetted central government employee, so that nearly everyone gets a bonus before Diwali; the difference is only in the label, the number of days, and whether a productivity formula sits behind the figure.

What makes it ad-hoc and non-productivity-linked

The name carries the whole idea. It is non-productivity-linked because there is no productivity formula behind the number. The employees who receive it, the clerical and secretariat staff, the establishment and accounts staff, the field and office staff of the ministries and their attached and subordinate offices, work in departments whose output cannot be measured against a target the way freight tonne-kilometres or units produced can. Because output cannot be counted, a productivity bonus of the PLB kind cannot be computed for them.

It is ad-hoc because, in place of a formula, the government simply fixes a number of days each year. That number has been 30 days for many consecutive years, so the ad-hoc bonus behaves like a fixed annual festival payment rather than a variable one. The word “ad-hoc” also signals its legal character, discussed below: it is a discretionary, ex-gratia grant, decided year by year, not an entitlement the employee can demand.

The government issues the order each year through the Department of Expenditure . For the accounting year 2024-25 the order was Office Memorandum No. 7/24/2007-E.III(A) dated 29 September 2025, sanctioning 30 days of ad-hoc bonus. The timing, late September or early October, is set so the money reaches employees before the Dussehra and Diwali holidays.

Who receives it, and who does not

The ad-hoc bonus is confined to two groups:

All Group C central government employees.
All non-gazetted Group B central government employees.

It stops there. Group A officers and gazetted Group B officers do not receive it, and neither do the employees already covered by a PLB scheme, who draw the productivity bonus instead. So the dividing lines are two: the seniority line, above which gazetted and Group A officers get no bonus at all, and the scheme line, which sends railway, postal, defence-production and Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation staff to PLB rather than the ad-hoc bonus.

The order also extends, by its own terms, to eligible employees of the central paramilitary forces and the armed forces who are not covered by any other bonus or ex-gratia scheme, and it is deemed extended to the employees of the Union Territory administrations that follow the central government pattern of emoluments.

The 30-day figure and the Rs. 6,908 amount

The calculation is identical in mechanism to PLB, only the number of days differs. Two figures do the work: the calculation ceiling and the daily divisor.

The calculation ceiling is Rs. 7,000 of monthly emoluments. The bonus is worked out on the average emoluments in the year, or on Rs. 7,000, whichever is lower. Since the minimum basic pay under the 7th Central Pay Commission is Rs. 18,000, and emoluments for this purpose are basic pay plus dearness allowance , every regular employee is above the Rs. 7,000 ceiling, so the bonus is computed on the notional Rs. 7,000, not on actual pay. The ceiling was raised to Rs. 7,000 from Rs. 3,500 with effect from 1 April 2014 by the Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 7/4/2014-E.III(A) dated 29 August 2016, and it has not moved since.

The daily divisor is 30.4, the average number of days in a month. The one-day rate on the ceiling is Rs. 7,000 divided by 30.4, which is Rs. 230.26. For 30 days:

Ad-hoc bonus = Rs. 7,000 times 30 divided by 30.4 = Rs. 6,907.89, rounded to Rs. 6,908

So Rs. 6,908 is the figure the great majority of central government employees receive. A worked example makes the ceiling visible. A section assistant whose basic pay plus dearness allowance is Rs. 70,000 a month receives Rs. 6,908, because the calculation ignores the Rs. 70,000 and uses Rs. 7,000. A junior clerk on Rs. 30,000 a month receives the same Rs. 6,908, for the same reason. Two employees nine years apart in seniority receive an identical bonus, which is the single most-felt feature of the ad-hoc bonus and the root of the demand to lift the ceiling.

All payments are rounded to the nearest rupee. Because the figure has been 30 days on a Rs. 7,000 ceiling for years, Rs. 6,908 has been the standard ad-hoc bonus for several consecutive years running.

Employees and labour below the ceiling

The ceiling caps the calculation but sets no floor, so an employee whose average monthly emoluments are below Rs. 7,000 is paid on actual emoluments. Among regular employees this no longer arises, but it governs the treatment of casual labour.

A casual labourer qualifies for the ad-hoc bonus with a sufficient service record: at least 240 days of work in each year for three years or more in an office on a six-day week, or 206 days a year for three years in an office on a five-day week. Their bonus is computed on a separate, lower ceiling of Rs. 1,200 a month, so 30 days works out to Rs. 1,200 times 30 divided by 30.4, which is Rs. 1,184. Where a casual labourer’s actual monthly emoluments are below Rs. 1,200, the lower actual figure is used.

Eligibility and pro-rata

Two conditions govern eligibility, common to the ad-hoc bonus and PLB:

In service on the last day. The employee must have been in service on 31 March of the accounting year for which the bonus is granted.
Six months of continuous service. The employee must have rendered at least six months of continuous service during that accounting year to draw the full bonus.

An employee who served between six months and one year receives a pro-rata bonus, in proportion to the period served. An employee with less than six months of continuous service is normally not eligible, subject to specific relaxations. Certain situations are handled by settled rules:

Retirement, death and discharge. An employee who retired on superannuation, died in service, or was discharged after completing the qualifying six months in the accounting year is eligible, and on death the bonus is paid to the family.
Resignation. An employee who resigned before 31 March is normally not eligible, because the in-service-on-the-last-day test fails.
Leave and dies-non. Regular leave counts towards the qualifying period; a spell treated as dies-non, and certain unauthorised absences, do not, and can pull the continuous service below the six-month threshold.
Transfer between offices. A transfer between eligible offices generally carries the continuous-service credit across the move, so it does not by itself break the qualifying period.

New entrants who joined during the year without completing six months of continuous service by its end draw their first ad-hoc bonus in the following cycle.

Extension to autonomous bodies

The ad-hoc bonus order covers central government employees directly. Its extension to the employees of central autonomous bodies is a separate matter, governed by its own order and by two firm conditions. An autonomous body may pay the ad-hoc bonus to its employees only where the body:

follows a pattern of pay structure and emoluments identical to that of the central government, and
has no bonus, ex-gratia or incentive scheme of its own already in operation.

A body that runs its own bonus or incentive scheme cannot also pay the ad-hoc bonus. The funding condition is equally firm: the central government does not fund the liability. The expenditure must be met from within the body’s existing budget or its own resources, and a request to the administrative ministry for extra funds to meet the bonus is not entertained. Autonomous bodies not funded by the central government may adopt the order at their own administrative and financial judgment, but again no liability falls on the central government.

These conditions are enforced. The Comptroller and Auditor General has flagged irregular payments where autonomous bodies paid the ad-hoc bonus without an order of the competent authority: one audit found 13 central autonomous bodies had paid a total of about Rs. 6.08 crore over 2015-16 to 2017-18 without the requisite sanction, because a separate ad-hoc bonus order for those bodies had not been issued for those years even though the order for central government employees had. The lesson is that an autonomous body needs a live, competent-authority order for the specific year before it pays, and that paying from its own development fund still requires the concurrence of its ministry.

An ex-gratia payment, not a right

The legal character of the government bonus is different from bonus in industry. A civil servant has no statutory right to a bonus. The ad-hoc bonus is an ex-gratia payment, granted at the discretion of the government by executive order, and decided afresh each year, which is exactly why it is styled “ad-hoc”. The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 , which creates a statutory right to bonus for employees of factories and other covered establishments, with a minimum of 8.33 per cent and a maximum of 20 per cent of wages, does not apply to a government servant. So none of the Act’s mechanics, the allocable surplus, the set-on and set-off, the percentage floor and ceiling, bear on the ad-hoc bonus. The only common idea is the calculation ceiling, and the figures there differ.

This ex-gratia character has practical consequences. The government may vary the number of days, or in principle withhold the bonus, without the breach of any entitlement, because there is none. In practice it has paid 30 days year after year, but the payment remains a grant, not a due.

History since 1982-83

The ad-hoc bonus for central government employees dates from the early 1980s. It was paid for the accounting year 1982-83 under the Ministry of Finance Office Memorandum No. 14(6)-E(Co-ord)/83 dated 10 November 1983, and a set of clarifications followed in the Office Memorandum No. 14(8)-E(Co-ord)/83 dated 8 March 1984. Ad-hoc bonus was then paid in each succeeding year, and as departments raised individual questions the clarifications were reviewed and consolidated.

That consolidation produced the order that still governs the scheme. The Office Memorandum No. F.14(10)/E(Co-ord)/88 dated 4 October 1988 set out a revised, comprehensive set of clarifications on how the ad-hoc bonus operates, and it remains foundational: the annual bonus orders issued decades later still direct that, in case of doubt, the 1988 clarificatory order, as amended from time to time, is to be kept in view. So a bonus order for 2024-25 rests on a framework laid down in 1988.

The calculation ceiling has been revised upward across successive orders over the years, reaching Rs. 3,500 in the 6th Central Pay Commission era and then Rs. 7,000 with effect from 1 April 2014. The number of days has settled at 30, and the label moved from “ad-hoc bonus” to the fuller “non-productivity-linked bonus” to mark the contrast with the productivity bonus paid elsewhere, but the two names refer to the same payment.

PLB and the ad-hoc bonus compared

The two government bonuses share their mechanism and differ in coverage and in the number of days. The table sets the difference out:

Feature	Productivity Linked Bonus	Ad-hoc bonus (non-PLB)
Who receives it	Non-gazetted staff of Railways, Posts, defence production, EPFO	Group C and non-gazetted Group B staff in all other departments
Basis for the days	A negotiated productivity formula	A flat number fixed by the government
Days in recent years	Varies; railways 78 days for 2023-24	30 days
Calculation ceiling	Rs. 7,000 monthly emoluments	Rs. 7,000 monthly emoluments
Divisor	30.4	30.4
Amount above the ceiling	Railway maximum Rs. 17,951 for 78 days	Rs. 6,908 for 30 days
Legal character	Ex-gratia, executive scheme	Ex-gratia, executive grant
Issued by	The administrative department (for example the Railway Board)	The Department of Expenditure

The shared row is the ceiling: both are capped at Rs. 7,000, so an employee in a PLB department and one in a non-PLB department are both computed on the same notional emoluments, and only the number of days separates their bonus.

The tax position

The ad-hoc bonus is fully taxable. It is part of salary income in the year of receipt, no provision of the Income-tax Act exempts it, and it is taxed at the applicable slab rate, with tax deducted at source by the drawing and disbursing officer in the month it is paid. Because it lands in a single month, the tax deducted that month rises, but across the year it is simply part of the taxable salary, as the income tax for government employees article sets out, and it forms part of that month’s take-home salary . Like PLB, the ad-hoc bonus does not count as emoluments for pension or gratuity , which rest on basic pay and dearness allowance.

The demand to lift the ceiling

The Rs. 7,000 ceiling is the grievance at the centre of the ad-hoc bonus, exactly as it is for PLB. It was last revised in 2014, and every regular employee’s pay has since risen far beyond it under the 7th Central Pay Commission , so the bonus has been frozen while pay has climbed. An employee earning Rs. 60,000 a month draws a bonus computed on Rs. 7,000, and receives the same Rs. 6,908 as a colleague on half that pay.

The staff side of the national council has pressed for the ceiling to be removed, so that the bonus is computed on actual emoluments of basic pay plus dearness allowance rather than a notional Rs. 7,000, and has put the demand to the 8th Central Pay Commission . Whether the ceiling is raised or removed is for the government and the pay commission to decide, and no revised ceiling can be stated as fact until an order issues. Until then the position stands: 30 days, a Rs. 7,000 ceiling, and Rs. 6,908 for anyone above it.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the ad-hoc bonus for central government employees?

The ad-hoc bonus, formally the non-productivity-linked bonus, is a flat annual bonus paid to Group C and all non-gazetted Group B central government employees who are not covered by any Productivity Linked Bonus scheme. In recent years it has been 30 days of emoluments, computed on a ceiling of Rs. 7,000 a month, which works out to Rs. 6,908 for those earning above the ceiling. It is paid before Diwali each year.

Why is it called ad-hoc and non-productivity-linked?

It is non-productivity-linked because, unlike the Productivity Linked Bonus paid in the Railways, Posts and defence production, there is no productivity formula behind it; the employees who receive it work in departments whose output cannot be measured against a target. It is ad-hoc because the government simply fixes a number of days each year, 30 in recent years, rather than deriving it from any scheme.

How much is the 30-day ad-hoc bonus?

For an employee whose average monthly emoluments exceed the Rs. 7,000 ceiling, the 30-day bonus is Rs. 7,000 times 30 divided by 30.4, which is Rs. 6,907.89, rounded to Rs. 6,908. Almost every regular employee under the 7th Central Pay Commission pay scales is above the ceiling, so Rs. 6,908 is the figure most people receive.

Who is eligible for the ad-hoc bonus?

A Group C or non-gazetted Group B employee who was in service on 31 March of the accounting year and has rendered at least six months of continuous service during that year. Those with service between six months and one year receive a pro-rata amount. Gazetted officers and Group A officers are outside it.

Do employees of autonomous bodies get the ad-hoc bonus?

Only where a separate order extends it to them. The bonus is extended to central autonomous bodies that follow the central pattern of pay and emoluments and have no bonus, ex-gratia or incentive scheme of their own, and the body must meet the cost from within its own budget, because the central government does not fund the liability. A payment made without a competent-authority order is irregular, and the Comptroller and Auditor General has flagged such payments.

Is the ad-hoc bonus the same as the bonus under the Payment of Bonus Act?

No. The ad-hoc bonus for government servants is an ex-gratia payment granted by executive order, not a statutory right, and the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, which governs bonus in factories and other establishments, does not apply to a civil servant. So the Act’s minimum of 8.33 per cent and maximum of 20 per cent of wages have no bearing on the government ad-hoc bonus.

Is the ad-hoc bonus taxable?

Yes. It is part of salary income in the year of receipt, fully taxable at the applicable slab rate, with tax deducted at source by the drawing and disbursing officer. No provision of the Income-tax Act exempts it.

External references

References

Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 7/24/2007-E.III(A) dated 29 September 2025, “Grant of Non-Productivity Linked Bonus (ad-hoc bonus) to Central Government Employees for the year 2024-25” (30 days of emoluments, calculation ceiling Rs. 7,000, one-day rate on Rs. 7,000 divided by 30.4 giving Rs. 6,908 for 30 days; casual labour on Rs. 1,200 ceiling giving Rs. 1,184).
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 7/4/2014-E.III(A) dated 29 August 2016 (revision of the calculation ceiling to Rs. 7,000 with effect from 1 April 2014, from Rs. 3,500).
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum dated 26 October 2015 (extension of the non-productivity-linked ad-hoc bonus to central autonomous bodies that follow the central pattern of emoluments and have no bonus or ex-gratia scheme, expenditure to be met from within existing budgets).
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 14(10)E-Coord/88 dated 4 October 1988 (clarificatory orders on the operation of the ad-hoc bonus, as amended from time to time).
Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Report on irregular payment of ad-hoc bonus by central autonomous bodies (payments of about Rs. 6.08 crore by 13 bodies over 2015-16 to 2017-18 in the absence of a competent-authority order).