Editorial policy

The sourcing, dating, review, correction and advertising standard every page on Salary-Calculator.in is written to, and what happens when a figure is wrong.

Updated 20 September 2026

This editorial policy sets out the standard every page on Salary-Calculator.in is written to: where a figure may come from, what counts as a citation, how a figure is dated and reviewed, what happens when one is wrong, and how advertising is kept out of editorial decisions.

The subject matter is consequential. A reader deciding whether to commute a portion of pension, choosing between the old and new tax regimes before a deadline, or checking an arrears computation against a pay slip, is acting on the numbers. A wrong figure here becomes a wrong decision there, and the standard below is set accordingly.

Every figure is checked against the primary document before publication. That verification step is what this policy is mostly about, and each section below describes a part of it.

Source hierarchy

A claim is acceptable only where it traces to a primary document. In descending order of authority those are the governing statute or gazette notification, the statutory rules made under it, the executive order that implements or clarifies them, and the Pay Commission report that recommended them.

For central government pay and allowances that means the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules 2016, the Office Memoranda issued under them by the Department of Expenditure and the Department of Personnel and Training, and the relevant Pay Commission report. For pension it means the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, the orders issued under them by the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, and the PFRDA regulations where the National Pension System or the Unified Pension Scheme applies.

For tax it means the Income-tax Act, 2025, together with the annual Finance Act and the notifications and circulars of the Central Board of Direct Taxes. One distinction is decisive and often got wrong: the Act supplies the charging structure, but the rates are enacted afresh every year by the Finance Act, so slabs, surcharge rates, marginal relief and the cess are cited to the Finance Act.

What counts as a citation

A citation names the document precisely enough for a reader to retrieve it and check the claim without help. That is the whole test. An Office Memorandum is named by its full file number and its date. A rule is named by its number and the gazette notification that carried it. An Act is named by section, and a Pay Commission report by chapter or paragraph.

The failure mode is the vague reference that reads like a source and identifies nothing. A sentence saying that an allowance was recently increased as per government orders cannot be checked by anyone. A sentence naming the rate, the effective date and the Office Memorandum that carried it can be checked in a minute. Only the second form survives review.

Sources that are not used

Salary and tax aggregators, coaching portals, employee-forum threads, SEO farms, personal blogs, social media and Wikipedia are not cited. Where one of them is correct, it is correct because it is repeating a primary order, and that order is cited instead.

Recognised Indian press archives are used for context and chronology only: the date an announcement was made, or the sequence in which a proposal moved. A press report never establishes a rate, a rule or an entitlement on this site.

Dating a figure

A figure is published with the date it took effect and the order that gave it effect, never as a bare current value. The reason is practical. A bare value is wrong the moment the rate moves, while a dated one stays true and simply becomes historical.

The same rule governs a figure that has been superseded. It is not deleted and it is not quietly overwritten. Where a change matters to a reader who acted on the old position, the page states the old figure, the new figure and the date the change took effect, so the reader can see which one applied when.

Every page carries a visible Updated date. That date moves on a substantive edit only, meaning a changed sentence, a changed figure, a changed citation or an added section. Changing a date without changing the content would misstate the freshness of the page. That is a defect, and it is handled as one.

Announcements that have not been notified

An announcement is not an entitlement, and this site does not state one as fact until an order exists. Pay revision is where the distinction bites hardest, because expectation runs years ahead of notification.

The 8th Central Pay Commission is the current case. No report has been submitted, no fitment factor has been decided and no minimum pay has been recommended, so nothing on this site states an 8th CPC pay figure as fact. Where the site models one, on a calculator or in a worked example, it is labelled a projection and the assumption it rests on is printed alongside it. The same treatment applies to a dearness allowance increase reported before the order has issued: the expected DA page states the computed position from the published AICPI-IW index values and says plainly that no order has been issued.

Consistency and review

Rates that move on a known cycle are held in one place and rendered into every page and calculator that uses them, so one edit reaches the whole site at once and no page can drift from another. Consistency is an accuracy requirement here, not a matter of tidiness. A corpus that contradicts itself gives a reader nothing to check against.

Dated figures in the high-traffic clusters are reviewed each time the governing authority issues an order affecting them, and a stale figure counts as an error, never as an acceptable lag. Dearness allowance and everything computed from it are reviewed on each half-yearly revision, the income-tax slabs and standard deduction on the Finance Act cycle, and the pension and gratuity ceilings whenever an amending notification touches them.

Verification and accountability

Every figure, date, file number and rule reference a reader might act on is checked against the governing document before the page goes up. A claim that survives that check is published. A claim that does not is deleted, not softened into a hedge that says nothing.

Verification is also where most corrections originate. Reading a governing rule closely enough to write one article routinely shows that a neighbouring article states something wrong, and the neighbour is fixed in the same pass. Correcting a live error takes priority over publishing anything new.

The byline on every page is the publisher. No individual reviewer is credited at present, and Salary-Calculator.in is accountable for the accuracy of everything it publishes.

Corrections

A correction request that names the page and the governing order is acted on. The contact page sets out what a useful report contains.

Where the report is right, the page is amended and its Updated date is changed. Where the correction moves a figure a reader may have acted on, the page records the old figure, the new one and the date the change took effect, so the old number is never simply overwritten. Where a report is not accompanied by a primary source, the claim is checked against the governing document before anything is changed. A page is not amended because a claim is asserted confidently or repeated widely. What a useful report contains, and the address for sending one when it is in service, are on the contact page.

Calculators

A calculator is held to the same sourcing standard as an article, with two additions. It draws its rates from the same single source the articles use, and it prints its formula and the governing source for every rate on the page itself, so the working can be checked without running the tool.

The inputs stay in the browser and are never transmitted, which the privacy policy sets out in full. A result is an estimate of an entitlement and not a sanction of one. The figure that binds is the one the drawing and disbursing officer, the pay and accounts office or the Central Pension Accounting Office computes on the service record.

Independence from advertising

The site carries Google AdSense display advertising and no other commercial arrangement. There are no affiliate links, no referral links, no sponsored content, no paid placements and no guest articles anywhere in editorial content, and requests for them are declined without exception.

No advertiser sees a page before publication, requests a page, or influences what a page says. Advertising does not determine which topics are covered, in what order, or in what light. Advertisements are placed programmatically and are kept visually distinct from the content, and no advertisement is styled or positioned to read as an article, a citation, a calculator result or an internal link.

No advertising is carried on placeholder pages, on the search page, or on the policy pages, this one included. Those pages state what the site is and how it is funded, and carrying the funding on them would undercut the statement they exist to make. Should the funding model ever change, this section is revised before the change takes effect.

Placeholder pages

Where an article links to a topic that has not been written, a short placeholder is published so that the link resolves to a real page instead of an error. The alternative is a dead internal link, which is worse for a reader than an honest placeholder.

A placeholder is labelled as such on the page, carries a noindex instruction, is excluded from the sitemap, and carries no advertising. It makes no factual claim beyond naming what the eventual article will cover.

Changes to this policy

This page is amended on the same terms as any other page on the site, and carries its own Updated date. A change to the sourcing standard, the correction procedure or the advertising position is written here before it takes effect.

External references

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What sources does Salary-Calculator.in cite?

Primary documents only, in descending order of authority: the governing statute or gazette notification, the statutory rules made under it, the executive order that implements or clarifies them, and the Pay Commission report that recommended them. A claim that cannot be traced to one of those is not published.

What counts as a citation on this site?

A reference that names the document precisely enough for a reader to retrieve it and check the claim without help. An Office Memorandum is named by its full file number and its date, a rule by its number and the gazette notification that carried it, an Act by section, and a Pay Commission report by chapter or paragraph. A vague reference such as as per government orders identifies nothing and does not survive review.

Can a news report establish a pay rate on this site?

No. Recognised Indian press archives are used for context and chronology only, meaning the date an announcement was made or the sequence in which a proposal moved. A press report never establishes a rate, a rule or an entitlement. Salary and tax aggregators, coaching portals, employee-forum threads, SEO farms, personal blogs, social media and Wikipedia are not cited at all.

How is a figure dated?

With the date it took effect and the order that gave it effect, never as a bare current value. A bare value is wrong the moment the rate moves, while a dated one stays true and simply becomes historical. A superseded figure is not deleted or quietly overwritten: where the change matters to a reader who acted on the old position, the page states the old figure, the new figure and the date the change took effect.

How does the site keep one dearness allowance rate across every page?

Rates that move on a known cycle are held in one place and rendered into every page and calculator that uses them, so a single edit reaches the whole site at once. Dearness allowance is the main case, revised twice a year with effect from 1 January and 1 July. A corpus that states one rate on one page and a different rate on another gives a reader nothing to check against, so internal consistency is an accuracy requirement here.

Does advertising influence what the site says?

No. The site carries Google AdSense display advertising and no other commercial arrangement. No advertiser sees a page before publication, requests a page, or influences what a page says, and advertising does not determine which topics are covered, in what order, or in what light. There are no affiliate links, no referral links, no sponsored content, no paid placements and no guest articles anywhere in editorial content.

References

CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, notified as G.S.R. 721(E) in the Gazette of India on 25 July 2016.
CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) in the Gazette of India on 20 December 2021.
Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), assented on 21 August 2025 and brought into force on 1 April 2026.
Finance Act, 2026 (rates of income tax, surcharge, marginal relief and the health and education cess for assessment year 2027-28, read with the Table in Section 202(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025).
Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026 (dearness allowance at 60% of basic pay with effect from 1 January 2026).
Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, Department of Expenditure, constituting the 8th Central Pay Commission and fixing its terms of reference and reporting period.