CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016

The Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 are the Central Government statutory instrument, notified by the Department of Expenditure as G.S.R. 721(E) on 25 July 2016 and deemed effective from 1 January 2016 by Rule 1(2), that gave legal force to the pay recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission. They run to 17 rules and a Schedule in three Parts. They abolished the system of pay bands and grade pay and replaced it with the 18-level pay matrix on which every central civil salary is now fixed.

A Pay Commission only recommends. Its report is advice to the government, not law, and no rupee moves on the strength of the report alone. The instrument that converts the recommendation into an enforceable entitlement is a set of rules made under the Constitution, and for the 7th CPC that instrument is these rules. They are the authority a Drawing and Disbursing Officer cites when fixing an employee’s pay, and the authority a tribunal reads when the fixation is disputed.

The 17 rules divide into three groups. Rules 1 to 4 set the instrument up: what it is called, whom it covers, what its words mean, and how a post is mapped to a level. Rules 5 to 13 are the working machinery, covering the option to stay out of the revision, fixation on 1 January 2016, direct recruits, the annual increment and its date, revision from a later date, Central deputation and promotion. Rules 14 to 17 close the instrument off with arrears, the overriding effect on the Fundamental Rules and the six earlier revised pay rules, the President’s power to relax, and reference of an interpretation question to the Central Government.

This article covers the rules as a legal instrument, rule by rule, with the illustrations printed in the rules themselves. It also covers the three Parts of the Schedule, the 2017 amendment that corrected the matrix and the bunching anomaly, and what these rules deliberately leave out, which is the whole of allowances. For the full level and cell table, see the pay matrix; for the derivation of the multiplier, see the fitment factor; for worked fixation examples across every event, see pay fixation; and for increment mechanics, see annual increment. This page is the containing instrument that those articles all cite.

The rule map

The CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 contain 17 rules, and which one applies is decided by the event, not by the question asked. The table below is the complete map of the instrument as notified by G.S.R. 721(E) on 25 July 2016.

Two of these are historically spent. Rules 5 and 6 gave a window that closed three months after 25 July 2016, and Rule 14 directed arrears into a financial year that ended on 31 March 2017. They still explain figures on record in a service book. The rest are in daily use, ten years after notification.

Where the rules come from and when they took effect

The rules were made by the President under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution, the provision that lets the President regulate the recruitment and conditions of service of persons serving the Union until Parliament legislates on the subject. In respect of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department they were made after consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General under Article 148(5). That constitutional footing is why the rules bind every covered office without a separate Act of Parliament, and why they can be amended by a further notification rather than by legislation.

The sequence that produced them is worth stating precisely, because the dates are routinely confused. The 7th CPC submitted its report on 19 November 2015. The Union Cabinet approved the recommendations on 29 June 2016. The Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure then notified the rules as G.S.R. 721(E), published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary on 25 July 2016. Rule 1(2) provides that they are deemed to have come into force on 1 January 2016.

The notification date and the date of effect are different on purpose. The revision is retrospective to 1 January 2016, so arrears of the higher pay fell due from that date even though the order issued nearly seven months later, and Rule 14 then directed that the arrears be paid during the financial year 2016-2017.

Who the rules cover, and who they do not

Rule 2(1) applies the rules to persons appointed to civil services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union whose pay is debitable to the Civil Estimates, and to persons serving in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. In plain terms they cover the general body of central civilian employees across ministries and their attached and subordinate offices, which is the great majority of the central government employee population.

Rule 2(2) then excludes eight categories, and reading the list prevents the common mistake of assuming one instrument governs everyone in government. The rules do not apply to persons appointed to Central Civil Services and posts in Groups A, B and C under the administrative control of the Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh; to persons locally recruited for service in diplomatic, consular or other Indian establishments in foreign countries; to persons not in whole-time employment; to persons paid out of contingencies; to persons paid otherwise than on a monthly basis, including those paid on a piece-rate basis; to persons employed on contract except where the contract provides otherwise; to persons re-employed in government service after retirement; and to any other class the President may specifically exclude by order.

Several large groups sit outside these rules because they have their own parallel instruments, each notified separately but built on the same matrix:

• Armed forces personnel are revised by separate Ministry of Defence orders. The defence pay matrix carries an extra element, military service pay, that no civilian scale has.
• The Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service are covered by the All India Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, notified by the Department of Personnel and Training.
• Railway staff are covered by the Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, notified by the Ministry of Railways.
• Autonomous bodies, public sector undertakings and Union Territory administrations adopt the pattern through their own adoption orders, and are not automatically covered.
• Gramin Dak Sevaks, the extra-departmental postal staff, are outside these rules and were dealt with by a separate committee.

The exclusion of re-employed pensioners is the one that catches people most often, because such an employee is drawing a central civil salary in a central civil post. Pay on re-employment is fixed by the CCS (Fixation of Pay of Re-employed Pensioners) Orders, 1986, not by Rule 7 or Rule 8, and the detail is in pay fixation on re-employment.

What “basic pay” now means

Rule 3 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 supplies twelve definitions, and one of them quietly changed the meaning of a word every employee uses. Basic pay in the revised pay structure is defined at Rule 3(x) as the pay drawn in the prescribed level in the pay matrix, and nothing else. That single clause is why there is no grade pay to add: after 1 January 2016 basic pay is one printed cell in a table.

The definition matters far beyond the pay slip, because dearness allowance, house-rent allowance, transport allowance, pension and gratuity are all computed as functions of basic pay. Change the definition of basic pay and every one of those figures changes with it.

The other definitions do the setting-up work. Existing basic pay under Rule 3(i) is pay drawn in the prescribed existing pay band and grade pay, or pay in the existing scale, immediately before the notification, whether the post was held substantively or in an officiating capacity. Existing emoluments under Rule 3(v) are the sum of existing basic pay and existing dearness allowance at the index average as on 1 January 2006, which is the figure Rule 7(7) and Rule 7(9) compare against when granting personal pay. The pay matrix under Rule 3(vi) is the matrix specified in Part A of the Schedule; the level under Rule 3(vii) is the level corresponding to the existing pay band and grade pay or scale; and pay in the level under Rule 3(viii) is pay drawn in the appropriate cell of that level.

An Explanation under Rule 3 protects the employee who was elsewhere on 1 January 2016. Where a government servant was on deputation out of India, on leave or on foreign service on 1 January 2016, or would have officiated in a lower post but for officiating in a higher one, the existing basic pay, pay band and grade pay or scale mean those of the post the employee would have held but for that circumstance.

Level of posts under Rule 4

Rule 4 is one sentence and it does the whole mapping job: the level of posts is determined in accordance with the various levels assigned to the corresponding existing pay band and grade pay or scale as specified in the pay matrix. A post that carried grade pay Rs. 2,400 in pay band PB-1 is a Level 4 post; a post that carried grade pay Rs. 5,400 in PB-3 is a Level 10 post.

This is why the level, and not a separate grade pay, now denotes the status of a post. The old grade pay figure did not disappear from administrative language, because it remains the key by which Rule 4 performs the mapping, and it is still printed as a header row over Part A of the Schedule. It is no longer a component of pay.

Rule 4 also explains why a level change requires an order and not a calculation. Because the level of a post is assigned rather than computed, moving a post to a higher level is an upgradation of the post, done by the government and recorded in Part B or Part C of the Schedule or in a later order, and it is a different thing from an individual’s promotion under Rule 13.

The option to stay in the pre-revised structure

Rule 5 does not force the revision on every employee from a single date. It requires a government servant to draw pay in the level of the revised pay structure applicable to the post, with a proviso allowing an election to continue drawing pay in the existing pay structure until the date of the next or any subsequent increment in that structure, until the post is vacated, or until the employee otherwise ceases to draw pay in the existing structure. A second proviso lets an employee placed in a higher grade pay or scale between 1 January 2016 and the date of notification, on promotion or upgradation, switch to the revised structure from the date of that event.

Three Explanations bound the option. Explanation 1 makes it admissible in respect of one existing pay band and grade pay or scale only. Explanation 2 shuts it to anyone appointed to a post for the first time, or by transfer from another post, on or after 1 January 2016, who must be allowed pay only in the revised structure. Explanation 3 fixes what counts as substantive pay for Fundamental Rule 22 purposes where the option is exercised in respect of a post held in an officiating capacity.

Rule 6 sets the machinery. The option had to be exercised in writing in the form appended to the rules and had to reach the Head of Office, with an undertaking in the appended form, within three months of the date of notification, or within three months of any later order revising the existing pay structure. Two provisos extend the window: an employee out of India on leave, deputation, foreign service or active service on the relevant date got three months from taking charge of the post in India, and an employee under suspension on 1 January 2016 got three months from the date of return to duty where that was later. If no intimation reached the authority in time, Rule 6(3) deems the employee to have elected the revised structure from 1 January 2016, and Rule 6(4) makes the option once exercised final.

Three Notes under Rule 6 deal with employees who could not exercise the option at all, and they are the part of the rule that still gets litigated. Note 1 preserves the option for a person whose service was terminated on or after 1 January 2016 by discharge on the expiry of sanctioned service, by resignation, by dismissal or by discharge on disciplinary grounds. Note 2 deems a person who died on or after 1 January 2016 to have opted for the revised structure from 1 January 2016 or from such later date as is most beneficial to the dependents, and directs the Head of Office to take action for payment of arrears. Note 3 preserves the option for a person who was on earned leave or other leave carrying leave salary on 1 January 2016.

How pay was fixed on 1 January 2016

Rule 7 is the load-bearing rule, and its method is three steps. Take the existing basic pay, meaning pay in the pay band plus grade pay. Multiply by 2.57 and round to the nearest rupee. Locate the figure in the applicable level of the pay matrix: if a cell equal to it exists, that cell is the revised pay, and if none exists, pay is fixed at the immediate next higher cell in that level.

Rule 7(1)(A)(ii) supplies the floor. Where the minimum pay, that is the first cell in the applicable level, is more than the figure arrived at by multiplication, pay is fixed at that first cell.

The rules carry their own worked illustration, which is the cleanest way to see the method. An employee in pay band PB-1 with grade pay Rs. 2,400 and pay in the pay band of Rs. 10,160 has existing basic pay of Rs. 12,560. Multiplied by 2.57 that is Rs. 32,279.20, rounded to Rs. 32,279. Grade pay Rs. 2,400 corresponds to Level 4, and no cell of Level 4 equals Rs. 32,279, so pay is fixed at the next higher cell, Rs. 32,300. The rounding is always up to the next cell and never down, which is a small but real benefit built into the rule.

The 2.57 is the entry-level fitment factor, and its derivation from dearness allowance neutralisation and a real pay rise is set out in that article. Every individual was fixed by this same 2.57 multiplication, whatever their level.

The eleven sub-rules of Rule 7

Rule 7 runs to eleven sub-rules, and the eight after the fixation method are what make it work in the awkward cases. Each is worth naming, because a fixation dispute is almost always a dispute about one of them.

• Rule 7(2) governs initial fixation on 1 January 2016 for a post whose level was upgraded by Part B or Part C of the Schedule.
• Rule 7(3) entitles an employee who was on leave carrying leave salary on 1 January 2016 to pay in the revised structure from 1 January 2016 or from the date of option.
• Rule 7(4) does the same for an employee on study leave on 1 January 2016.
• Rule 7(5) keeps an employee under suspension on subsistence allowance based on the existing pay structure, and makes the revised pay subject to the final order in the pending disciplinary proceedings.
• Rule 7(6) covers merged posts: where a permanent employee officiating in a higher post on a regular basis finds the two pay structures merged into one level, pay is fixed with reference to the officiating post only, and the pay so fixed is treated as substantive pay.
• Rule 7(7) grants personal pay where existing emoluments exceed revised emoluments, the difference to be absorbed in future increases in pay.
• Rule 7(8) steps up a senior who was drawing more pay than a junior of the same cadre before 1 January 2016 but got fixed in a lower cell, to the same cell as the junior.
• Rule 7(9) deals with an employee already in receipt of personal pay before the notification, allowing the excess over revised emoluments to continue as personal pay to be absorbed in future increases.
• Rule 7(10) is a second and separate stepping-up provision, dealt with below.
• Rule 7(11) provides that where pay fixed in an officiating post falls below the pay fixed in the substantive post, the former is fixed at the same stage as the substantive pay.

Rule 7(10) is the sub-rule most often missed, because stepping up of pay is usually discussed as though Rule 7(8) were the only route inside the instrument. Rule 7(10)(i) covers the opposite timing: a senior promoted to a higher post before 1 January 2016 who draws less in the revised structure than a junior promoted to the same higher post on or after that date. The senior’s pay is stepped up to the junior’s figure from the date of the junior’s promotion, subject to four conditions, which are that both belong to the same cadre and hold identical promoted posts, that the existing and revised pay structures of the lower and higher posts are identical for both, that the senior was drawing equal or more pay than the junior at the time of promotion, and that the anomaly is directly the result of Fundamental Rule 22 or another rule regulating pay fixation on promotion. A proviso bars the claim where the junior drew more only by virtue of advance increments. Rule 7(10)(ii) requires the re-fixation order to issue under Fundamental Rule 27, and gives the senior the next increment on completing the required qualifying service from the date of re-fixation.

Counting the routes correctly matters when a claim is being framed. The Rules themselves contain three stepping-up provisions, Rule 7(8) for the migration inversion, Rule 7(10) for the pre-2016 and post-2016 promotion inversion, and Rule 10(3) for merged grades. A fourth route sits outside the Rules in DoPT Office Memorandum No. 4/3/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 26 October 2018, the consolidated stepping-up guidelines, which is the route in daily use today for an anomaly arising from FR 22(I)(a)(1) read with Rule 13.

Medical officers and non-practising allowance

Rule 7(1)(B) fixes a medical officer drawing non-practising allowance by a different arithmetic, because non-practising allowance forms part of pay for several purposes and could not simply be multiplied. Existing basic pay is multiplied by 2.57, and to that figure is added an amount equivalent to the dearness allowance on the pre-revised non-practising allowance admissible as on 1 January 2006. The sum is located in the applicable level and placed at the equal or next higher cell, and the pre-revised non-practising allowance is then added to the pay so fixed, pending a decision on revised rates.

The rule’s own illustration works it through. An officer in PB-3 with grade pay Rs. 5,400 and pay in the pay band of Rs. 15,600 has existing basic pay of Rs. 21,000. Non-practising allowance at 25% is Rs. 5,250, and dearness allowance on that at 125% is Rs. 6,563. Basic pay multiplied by 2.57 is Rs. 53,970, and adding Rs. 6,563 gives Rs. 60,533. Grade pay Rs. 5,400 in PB-3 corresponds to Level 10, whose cells run Rs. 56,100, Rs. 57,800, Rs. 59,500 and Rs. 61,300, so pay is fixed at Rs. 61,300. Adding the pre-revised non-practising allowance of Rs. 5,250 gives Rs. 66,550. Rule 13 carries a matching clause capping pay plus non-practising allowance on promotion at the prescribed limit.

Direct recruits appointed on or after 1 January 2016

Rule 8 places a direct recruit at the minimum pay, meaning the first cell, of the level applicable to the post, and there is no arithmetic to do. Level 1 starts at the minimum pay of Rs. 18,000, Level 6 at Rs. 35,400, Level 7 at Rs. 44,900 and Level 10, the entry level for Group A services recruited through the civil services examination, at Rs. 56,100.

A proviso to Rule 8 deals with the transitional recruit and still explains anomalies visible in old service books. Where a person appointed on or after 1 January 2016 but before 25 July 2016 had already been fixed in the existing pay structure, and the existing emoluments exceed the first cell of the level, the difference is paid as personal pay to be absorbed in future increments in pay.

The scope of Rule 8 is narrower than the phrase “on appointment” suggests, and getting it wrong is a common fixation error. Rule 8 governs direct recruitment alone. An employee who reaches the post by promotion is fixed under Rule 13, one taking a Central deputation post is covered by Rule 12, and a re-employed pensioner falls outside these rules altogether under Rule 2(2)(vii).

The annual increment: Rule 9 grants it, Rule 10 dates it

Two different rules do the two halves of the increment, and conflating them is the single most common misreading of this instrument. Rule 9, headed “Increments in Pay Matrix”, grants the increment and specifies it as movement to the next vertical cell of the applicable level, illustrating it with an employee drawing Rs. 32,300 in Level 4 moving to Rs. 33,300. Rule 10 fixes the date and does nothing else.

Rule 10(1) provides two dates for the grant of an increment, 1 January and 1 July of every year, in place of the single 1 July date that applied under the 6th CPC. A proviso entitles an employee to only one annual increment, on either 1 January or 1 July, depending on the date of appointment, promotion or grant of financial upgradation.

Rule 10(2) assigns the date. An employee appointed, promoted or granted a financial upgradation including an upgradation under the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme between 2 January and 1 July, both days included, takes the increment on 1 January; one whose relevant event falls between 2 July and 1 January takes it on 1 July. The rule’s illustrations run the two cases: an employee appointed or promoted between 2 July 2016 and 1 January 2017 gets the first increment on 1 July 2017, and one appointed or promoted between 2 January 2016 and 1 July 2016 who drew no increment on 1 July 2016 gets it on 1 January 2017. Two provisos handle the changeover year itself, giving an employee whose pay was fixed as on 1 January 2016 the next increment on 1 July 2016, and the one after that on 1 July 2017.

Rule 10(3) is a stepping-up provision hiding in an increment rule. Where two existing grades in a hierarchy are merged and a junior in the lower grade comes to draw more in the corresponding revised level than the senior, the senior’s pay is stepped up to the junior’s from the same date, and the senior then draws the next increment in accordance with Rule 10.

The 3% that everybody quotes is not in these rules at all. The rules never state an increment percentage. The rate comes from the report of the 7th Central Pay Commission, which retained the rate of annual increment at three percent at paragraph 5.1.38 and described the vertical cells as steps of three percent annual financial progression within each level at paragraph 5.1.21. Rule 9 then hands the employee whatever cell that exercise produced, rounded to the nearest hundred rupees. The employee-facing detail, including the interaction with leave and the six-month qualifying requirement, is in annual increment.

Revision from a later date, and Central deputation

Rule 11 covers the employee who continued in the existing pay structure and was brought over to the revised structure from a date later than 1 January 2016, which is the position of anyone who exercised the Rule 5 option. Pay is fixed in the manner prescribed in clause (A) of sub-rule (1) of Rule 7, which is the same 2.57 multiplication and the same equal-or-next-higher-cell placement, applied on the later date rather than on 1 January 2016.

Rule 12 protects an officer on Central deputation against a fall in pay. Where the pay of an officer posted on deputation to the Central Government under the Central Staffing Scheme, once fixed either under these rules or under the instructions regulating fixation on the deputation post, is lower than the pay the officer would have drawn in the parent cadre but for the deputation, the difference is protected as personal pay. Rule 12 was amended by Department of Expenditure notification No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 15 June 2017, taking effect from 1 January 2016. The wider treatment of deputation pay is in deputation in central government, and the rates and ceilings of the allowance itself in deputation (duty) allowance.

Pay on promotion and MACP under Rule 13

Rule 13 fixes pay on promotion, or on a MACP financial upgradation, taking effect on or after 1 January 2016, in two ordered steps, and the order decides the answer. First, one increment is given in the level from which the employee is promoted, which means the next vertical cell of that level. Second, the figure so arrived at is located in the level of the promoted post: the employee is placed at the cell equal to it, or, where no equal cell exists in that level, at the next higher cell in it.

Rule 13 covers a financial upgradation under the MACP scheme in the same words, which is why promotion and MACP fixations look identical on paper. The rule’s own illustration is headed “Granted promotion/financial upgradation under MACPS in Level 5” and takes an employee drawing Rs. 28,700 in Level 4: one increment in Level 4 gives Rs. 29,600, and the equal or next higher cell in Level 5 is Rs. 30,100.

The rule caps one thing. Its second clause deals with non-practising allowance and prevents the pay plus non-practising allowance of a promoted medical officer from exceeding the prescribed limit.

The date-of-next-increment option is not in Rule 13. It comes from Fundamental Rule 22(I)(a)(1), which lets a promotee elect in writing within one month for pay to be fixed either from the date of promotion or from the date of next increment in the lower post, and its current text was substituted by DoPT Notification No. 13/1/2017-Estt.(Pay-I), G.S.R. 370, dated 19 November 2018. The worked comparison of the two paths is in pay fixation on promotion and option for pay fixation on promotion, and an interactive walkthrough is in the pay fixation on promotion calculator.

Arrears, overriding effect, relaxation and interpretation

The last four rules are short and are the ones nobody reads until they matter.

Rule 14 directed that the arrears be paid during the financial year 2016-2017, and defines arrears of pay as the difference between the aggregate of pay and dearness allowance due on account of the revision from 1 January 2016 and the aggregate that would have been due had pay and allowances not been revised, whether or not that lower amount was actually received. That definition is what a Pay and Accounts Office applied when computing an arrears bill, and it is why arrears were computed on pay plus dearness allowance and on nothing else.

Rule 15 gives the instrument its overriding effect, and it names its predecessors. The provisions of the Fundamental Rules, the Central Civil Services (Revision of Pay) Rules, 1947, and the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules of 1960, 1973, 1986, 1997 and 2008 do not apply, save as otherwise provided in the 2016 rules, to cases where pay is regulated under the 2016 rules, to the extent they are inconsistent with them. Two things follow. The 2016 rules are the seventh instrument in an unbroken line running back to 1947, one for each Pay Commission implementation. And the Fundamental Rules are displaced only to the extent of inconsistency, which is why FR 22(I)(a)(1) still supplies the promotion date option, FR 27 still carries a stepping-up re-fixation order, and FR 35 still caps officiating pay.

Rule 16 gives the President the power to relax. Where the President is satisfied that the operation of any provision causes undue hardship in a particular case, the requirement of that rule may be dispensed with or relaxed by order, to the extent and subject to the conditions considered necessary to deal with the case in a just and equitable manner. This is the provision an individual hardship representation is made under, and it is case-specific rather than class-wide.

Rule 17 requires any question relating to the interpretation of any provision of the rules to be referred to the Central Government for decision, which in practice means the Department of Expenditure, and which is why the operative meaning of several rules is found in a Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum rather than in the rule text.

The Schedule: Parts A, B and C

The Schedule is described in every summary as though it were the pay matrix alone. It is not. The Schedule, headed as appended to Rules 3(vi) and 7(2), has three Parts, and a Form of Option and an Undertaking follow it.

Part A is the pay matrix. It has 18 levels printed across 19 columns, because Level 13A sits between Levels 13 and 14, with the old pay bands and grade pay printed as header rows so that Rule 4 can perform its mapping. The floor is Rs. 18,000 at cell 1 of Level 1, and Levels 17 and 18 are the fixed figures Rs. 2,25,000 and Rs. 2,50,000, the latter being Cabinet Secretary pay. The full table belongs in the pay matrix article and is not reproduced here, and the salary at each pay level gives the pay each column produces once dearness allowance and house rent allowance are added.

Part B carries the upgraded levels approved by the government for medical and paramedical services and for common categories, listing each post with its existing grade pay, the level corresponding to that grade pay, the level recommended by the 7th CPC and the paragraph of the report, and it names posts such as Optometrist, Senior Optometrist and Dental Mechanic. Part C carries the upgraded levels approved for certain posts in ministries, departments and Union Territories, in the same columns. Both Parts state that initial fixation on 1 January 2016 for a post listed in them is made in accordance with Rule 7(2).

Parts B and C are the reason a small number of posts sit in a level that the grade pay to level mapping in Part A would not produce. Where an employee’s level does not match the Rule 4 mapping of the old grade pay, Part B or Part C is the first place to look, and the 7th CPC report paragraph cited against the post in the Schedule gives the reasoning.

The Form of Option and the Undertaking appended after the Schedule are the prescribed instruments for Rule 6. The option had to be exercised in that form, and the undertaking had to accompany it to the Head of Office.

The pay matrix and the index of rationalisation

The pay matrix substituted by these rules is built on two different multipliers, and confusing them is the most expensive misreading on the subject. The index of rationalisation builds the vertical spine: the entry pay of each level is generated by applying a multiplication factor to the entry pay of the level below, 2.57 for Levels 1 to 5, rising at higher levels to reflect greater responsibility and reaching 2.67 at Level 13 after the 2017 amendment.

The 2.57 fitment factor of Rule 7 is a different thing entirely. It is applied to an individual’s existing basic pay, and it is 2.57 for every individual at every level. The higher index is already baked into the entry pay of the level and is never applied again to a person. A common error is to multiply a senior officer’s pay by 2.67 or 2.72 because the officer sits in Level 13 or Level 14; Rule 7(1)(A) does not permit it.

Each column of the matrix runs downward in steps of three percent rounded to the nearest hundred rupees, which is the arithmetic behind the annual increment Rule 9 grants. Level 13A was in the matrix from the start: it is printed in Table 5 of the 7th CPC report of 19 November 2015 and in Part A of the Schedule as first notified on 25 July 2016, and no amendment created it.

The 2017 amendment and the bunching fix

The instrument was amended once in a way that changed a printed figure. The Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017, notified as G.S.R. 592(E) by the Department of Expenditure on 15 June 2017 and effective from 1 January 2016, substituted a revised pay matrix in Part A of the Schedule. The best-known correction raised the entry cell of Level 13 from Rs. 1,18,500 to Rs. 1,23,100, by revising the index of rationalisation for that level from 2.57 to 2.67, and shortened that column from 21 stages to 20, taking the matrix from 541 cells to 540. Older tables that still show Rs. 1,18,500 predate this amendment and are wrong. The same notification amended Rule 12 on Central deputation.

The other correction addressed bunching, and it was made by Office Memorandum rather than by amendment. Where employees at different stages of a 6th CPC scale were compressed into the same cell of the matrix after multiplication by 2.57, they lost the seniority differential they had earned. The Department of Expenditure allowed a bunching benefit of one additional increment under the office memoranda numbered F. No. 1-6/2016-IC, beginning with the order dated 7 September 2016 and the detailed illustration dated 3 August 2017, which set the terms as one increment for every two consecutive stages bunched, with stages counted as consecutive where they are at least three percent apart, and no benefit by reference to stages below the entry pay of the level. A further clarification, F. No. 1-6/2016-IC/E-IIIA dated 7 February 2019, granted one additional increment where two pre-2016 stages separated by three percent land in the same cell.

Bunching belongs to the migration and to nothing else. It has no application to a Rule 13 fixation on promotion, where the two-step method already fixes each employee by reference to the cell actually occupied. The stage calculation is worked through in bunching of pay. Pay fixation on promotion and the date-of-next-increment option were separately clarified by Office Memorandum No. 13/02/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 27 July 2017.

What the rules do not cover: allowances

The CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 govern pay alone, and the omission was deliberate. The government referred the 7th CPC allowance recommendations to a Committee on Allowances rather than notifying them with the pay rules, and the allowances package was notified separately by Department of Expenditure Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC, published in the Gazette of India (Extraordinary) on 6 July 2017, with revised rates admissible from 1 July 2017.

The gap of eighteen months is the practical consequence, and it is still the source of a common complaint. Employees drew revised pay from 1 January 2016 but 6th CPC allowance rates until 30 June 2017, and no arrears were paid on the allowance gap. Each allowance then has its own order under that parent Resolution, such as Office Memorandum No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) of 7 July 2017 for house rent allowance and No. 21/5/2017-E.II(B) of the same date for transport allowance. The full package is in allowances for central government employees.

Dearness allowance and other allowances on revised pay

Because Rule 3(x) redefined basic pay as pay in the level of the matrix, every allowance that is a function of basic pay is now computed on the cell figure and on nothing else. Dearness allowance is a percentage of that basic pay, revised twice a year by the Department of Expenditure on the basis of the twelve-month average of the All-India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers through the Aykroyd formula. It is 60% of basic pay with effect from 1 January 2026, under Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026. The same percentage flows to pensioners as dearness relief.

House-rent allowance is drawn at 30%, 20% or 10% of basic pay by city classification, and transport allowance at rates that themselves attract dearness allowance. The combined effect of the cell figure and these allowances is what an employee actually receives; the take-home salary article and the 7th CPC salary calculator put the pieces together for a given level.

Common misconceptions

Eight errors recur when people read these rules, and each has a precise correction:

• The rules do not end at Rule 13. There are 17 rules, and Rules 14 to 17 carry the arrears definition, the overriding effect on the Fundamental Rules and the six earlier revised pay rules, the President’s power to relax, and reference of an interpretation question to the Central Government.
• The Schedule is not the pay matrix alone. Part A is the matrix, Part B lists upgraded levels for medical, paramedical and common category posts, and Part C lists upgraded levels for certain posts in ministries, departments and Union Territories, both fixed under Rule 7(2).
• Rule 10 does not grant the increment. Rule 9 grants it as movement to the next vertical cell, and Rule 10 only fixes the date at 1 January or 1 July.
• The 3% increment rate is nowhere in the rules. It is stated at paragraph 5.1.38 of the 7th CPC report, and the rules simply carry the cells that exercise produced.
• The 2.57 figure is the fitment factor applied to every individual under Rule 7(1)(A). The index of rationalisation, which rises to 2.67 at Level 13, built the entry pay of each level and is never applied to a person.
• Basic pay now means only the matrix cell, under Rule 3(x). There is no grade pay to add; grade pay was abolished and survives only as the Rule 4 mapping label.
• The notification date, 25 July 2016, is not the effective date. Rule 1(2) applies the rules from 1 January 2016.
• The Level 13 entry cell is Rs. 1,23,100, corrected by G.S.R. 592(E) of 15 June 2017, not the Rs. 1,18,500 printed in the original 2016 schedule.

The rules, the 7th CPC and the 8th CPC

These rules are the implementing instrument of the 7th Central Pay Commission: the Commission recommended on 19 November 2015, the Cabinet approved on 29 June 2016, and G.S.R. 721(E) enacted on 25 July 2016. Where the rules or a later Department of Expenditure order differ from the report, the rules prevail, as the upward correction of the Level 13 entry pay by G.S.R. 592(E) shows.

The 8th Central Pay Commission was constituted by Ministry of Finance Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025 under Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai. When it reports and its recommendations are accepted, the government will notify a fresh set of revised pay rules for the implementing year, carrying its own fitment and fixation rule in place of Rule 7, its own increment provisions in place of Rules 9 and 10, and its own promotion rule in place of Rule 13. The structure will follow the 2016 template closely, because the 2016 rules themselves followed the pattern of the 2008 rules that Rule 15 names, and the changeover fixation will again be old basic pay multiplied by a new fitment factor and placed at the equal or next higher cell.

Related Articles

• Bunching of pay
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• Central Pay Commission
• Pay matrix
• Fitment factor
• Index of rationalisation
• Minimum pay
• Basic pay
• Pay fixation
• Pay fixation on promotion
• Option for pay fixation on promotion
• Pay fixation on re-employment
• Date of next increment
• Stepping up of pay
• Personal pay
• Annual increment
• Grade pay
• Pay band
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• Concordance table
• Deputation in central government
• Non-practising allowance
• Study leave
• Suspension
• Subsistence allowance
• Allowances for central government employees
• Dearness allowance
• Dearness relief
• House-rent allowance
• City classification for HRA
• Transport allowance
• Aykroyd formula
• AICPI-IW
• Take-home salary for central government employees
• Central government pension
• National Pension System
• Department of Expenditure
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Central government employees in India
• Defence pay matrix
• Military service pay
• All India Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules
• Gramin Dak Sevak
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• Pay fixation on promotion calculator

External references

• Department of Expenditure, orders and circulars
• Department of Personnel and Training
• The Gazette of India
• 7th Central Pay Commission report (Department of Expenditure)
• Press Information Bureau

References

1. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, gazette notification G.S.R. 721(E), Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, dated 25 July 2016: Rule 1 (short title and commencement), Rule 2 (application and the eight exclusions), Rule 3 (definitions), Rule 4 (level of posts), Rules 5 and 6 (drawal and exercise of option, with Explanations 1 to 3 and Notes 1 to 3), Rule 7 (fixation, sub-rules (1) to (11), with the clause (A) and clause (B) illustrations), Rule 8 (direct recruits), Rule 9 (increments in the pay matrix), Rule 10 (date of next increment, with sub-rule (3)), Rule 11 (revision from a later date), Rule 12 (Central deputation), Rule 13 (promotion and MACP), Rule 14 (mode of payment of arrears), Rule 15 (overriding effect), Rule 16 (power to relax), Rule 17 (interpretation), and the Schedule in Parts A, B and C with the Form of Option and the Undertaking.
2. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017, gazette notification G.S.R. 592(E), Department of Expenditure, dated 15 June 2017, with effect from 1 January 2016 (substituted pay matrix in Part A of the Schedule; Level 13 entry pay Rs. 1,23,100; amendment of Rule 12).
3. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memoranda on bunching, F. No. 1-6/2016-IC dated 7 September 2016 and 3 August 2017, and clarification F. No. 1-6/2016-IC/E-IIIA dated 7 February 2019.
4. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum on pay fixation on promotion and the date of next increment, No. 13/02/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 27 July 2017.
5. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 4/3/2017-Estt.(Pay-I) dated 26 October 2018, consolidated guidelines on stepping up of pay.
6. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC, Gazette of India (Extraordinary), 6 July 2017, notifying the government’s decision on the 7th CPC allowance recommendations, effective 1 July 2017.
7. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum revising dearness allowance to 60% with effect from 1 January 2026, F. No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026.
8. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (submitted 19 November 2015), paragraphs 5.1.21 and 5.1.38 on the three percent annual increment, and the chapters on the pay matrix, minimum pay, the fitment factor and the index of rationalisation.
9. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, constituting the 8th Central Pay Commission.
10. Constitution of India, proviso to Article 309 and clause (5) of Article 148 (enabling provisions cited in the notification).