Flying Allowance

The Flying Allowance is Rs. 31,250 a month for personnel at Level 9 and above and Rs. 21,625 a month for personnel at Level 8 and below, and it has stood at those figures since 1 January 2024. It is paid at cell R1H1 of the Risk and Hardship matrix, the highest cell anyone actually draws from, to aircrew of the armed forces for the risk and demand of flying duty. The base rates fixed with effect from 1 July 2017 were Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 17,300, and the single 25% escalator step that fell due when dearness allowance reached 50% produced the figures in force today.

Paragraph 8.10.20 of the Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission defines who draws it: officers of the flying branch, and technical officers and airmen performing aircrew duties, in the Indian Air Force, together with corresponding aviation personnel of the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. Paragraph 8.10.68 placed the allowance in cell R1H1 and extended it to the Border Security Force Air Wing, ending that force’s system of paying flying allowance by the hour. The rates were notified by Department of Expenditure Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017 and implemented for the forces by Ministry of Defence letter No. 1(16)/2017/D(Pay/Services) dated 18 September 2017.

The rationalisation changed the shape of the allowance more than its size. Before 1 July 2017 the Flying Allowance ran in six rank-wise slabs from Rs. 10,500 to Rs. 21,000 a month, and the slabs did not rise monotonically with rank: an Air Commodore and above drew Rs. 15,750 while a Squadron Leader to Group Captain drew Rs. 21,000. The Commission replaced the six slabs with the two bands of the matrix, and because it averaged the old rates before applying its factor of 1.5, the junior ranks gained most. A Senior Non-Commissioned Officer moved from Rs. 10,500 to Rs. 17,300, a rise of 64.8%, and a Squadron Leader from Rs. 21,000 to Rs. 25,000, a rise of 19.0%.

This article sets out the rate and the order that fixes it, the arithmetic by which the Commission derived the cell, who is eligible across the three services and in the Coast Guard and the BSF Air Wing, the rank-wise position before 2017, the two demands the Committee on Allowances refused, the escalator, where flying sits against Siachen and the field-area rates, the distinction from Military Service Pay, the aviation allowances that are not this one, the effect of leave and suspension, reckonability for pension, and the tax position. It is a child of the allowances hub, and the matrix framework in full is at risk and hardship allowance.

Rate and the order that fixes it

The Flying Allowance is Rs. 31,250 a month at Level 9 and above and Rs. 21,625 at Level 8 and below with effect from 1 January 2024. Those are the cell R1H1 rates of the Risk and Hardship matrix, and the Flying Allowance is nothing other than that cell applied to aircrew on flying duty.

Two instruments carry the entitlement. Department of Expenditure Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017 adopted the matrix and its cell rates with effect from 1 July 2017. Ministry of Defence letter No. 1(16)/2017/D(Pay/Services) dated 18 September 2017 implemented it for the armed forces, and item 6 of Appendix A to that letter prints Flying Allowance against cell R1H1 at Rs. 25,000 a month for officers and Rs. 17,300 for Junior Commissioned Officers, other ranks and their Air Force equivalents.

The Ministry of Defence appendix states the bands by category rather than by level number, and on the defence side the two formulations coincide. Part B of the Schedule to the Army Pay Rules, 2017 maps Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks to Levels 3 to 8, and Part B of the Army Officers Pay Rules, 2017 maps commissioned ranks from Level 10 upward. Level 9 is printed in Part A of the defence pay matrix, at a cell 1 of Rs. 53,100, with no rank assigned to it, so no serving member of the forces sits on the boundary the matrix draws.

No separate order was issued to give effect to the increase of 1 January 2024. The Department of Expenditure’s standing position, given to the Controller General of Accounts on 20 March 2024, is that the escalation under paragraph 8.10.66 of the 7th CPC report is self-executing and requires no fresh notification. An aircrew member looking for the order that raised the Flying Allowance to Rs. 31,250 will not find one, and its absence is not an oversight.

Derivation of the cell R1H1 rate

The Rs. 25,000 figure is the average of four Flying Allowance slabs multiplied by 1.5, and paragraph 8.10.68 of the 7th CPC report shows the whole working. The four slabs above grade pay Rs. 5,400 in pay band 3 were Rs. 15,750, Rs. 21,000, Rs. 16,500 and Rs. 13,500 a month. Their average is Rs. 16,688, a factor of 1.5 gives Rs. 25,032, and the Commission rounded that to Rs. 25,000.

Applying the same method to the two slabs below grade pay Rs. 5,400 produces the lower band. Warrant ranks drew Rs. 12,600 and Senior Non-Commissioned Officers Rs. 10,500, an average of Rs. 11,550, and a factor of 1.5 gives Rs. 17,325, rounded to Rs. 17,300. The report states that the same exercise was done for grade pay below Rs. 5,400 without printing the arithmetic.

Averaging before multiplying was chosen for its distributive effect and the paragraph says so in terms: the methodology “will have the intended consequence of benefitting the junior officers and ranks more compared to higher officers and ranks”, and the report gives the Sepoy as its worked case, moving from Rs. 10,500 to Rs. 17,300 rather than the Rs. 15,750 that a flat factor of 1.5 would have produced.

The cell also had to preserve an existing parity. Paragraph 8.10.68 records that Flying Allowance, the MARCOS and Chariot Allowance, the Special Forces Allowance and the Submarine Allowance stood at parity before 2016, and that the parity was kept intact by placing all four in the same cell. The CoBRA allowance of the Central Reserve Police Force, then at 80% of the MARCOS rate, was raised to parity with them, which paragraph 8.10.68 describes as a conscious decision in view of the threat of Left Wing Extremism.

Who is eligible

Eligibility follows the flying appointment, not the flying qualification. Paragraph 8.10.20 of the 7th CPC report defines the entitlement as admissible to officers of the flying branch, and to technical officers and airmen performing aircrew duties, in the Indian Air Force, and to corresponding aviation personnel of the Indian Army and the Indian Navy. An officer holding a flying qualification who is posted to a ground appointment does not draw the Flying Allowance for that period.

The definition is wider than pilots alone. It reaches the technical officers and the airmen who perform aircrew duties, which brings navigators, flight engineers and flight signallers within it, and it reaches the aviation personnel of the Army Aviation Corps and of naval aviation on the same terms as the Air Force flying branch. The condition in every case is performance of aircrew duty, and the entitlement runs for as long as the appointment carrying that duty lasts.

The rate turns on the pay band and on nothing else within a band. A Flying Officer at Level 10 and a Group Captain at Level 13 on flying appointments draw the same Rs. 31,250 a month, because the matrix carries two rates per cell and no gradation between them. That is a change of principle from the pre-2017 position, where six rank-wise slabs applied.

Coverage across the services, the Coast Guard and the BSF Air Wing

Four bodies draw the Flying Allowance: the Indian Air Force, the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the Indian Coast Guard, together with the Border Security Force Air Wing. The authority differs for each, and it is worth separating them because only the first three come from Chapter 8.10 directly.

The BSF Air Wing was brought in by paragraph 8.10.68, which recommends that Flying Allowance “should be extended mutatis mutandis to personnel of BSF Air Wing also and their present system of paying flying allowance on an hourly basis should be done away with”. The press note recording the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017 confirms the extension. That change replaced an hourly payment with a flat monthly cell rate, which is the single largest structural change the rationalisation made to any flying entitlement outside the armed forces.

The Coast Guard entitlement rests on the Report of the Committee on Allowances dated 27 April 2017 rather than on Chapter 8.10. Paragraph 7.2.2 of that report lists the allowances the Ministry of Defence grants to Coast Guard personnel at par with naval personnel, and Flying Allowance is item (vi) on that list. Paragraph 7.2.5 then recommends that allowances presently admissible to the Indian Coast Guard at par with the Indian Navy continue to be admissible “even if specific mention to this effect has not been made in the 7th CPC Report”. Chapter 8.10 makes no such mention in the Flying Allowance paragraphs, so paragraph 7.2.5 is the operative provision.

A demand to widen the BSF entitlement further was refused. Paragraph 5.4.10 of the Committee’s report records that the Ministry of Home Affairs asked for Flying or Technical Allowance at par with the Indian Air Force to be given to BSF Air Wing personnel other than crew, and the Committee recommended that the 7th CPC recommendations on Flying Allowance be accepted without any change. The extension therefore reaches BSF Air Wing aircrew and stops there.

Rank-wise rates before 1 July 2017

Six slabs applied before the matrix, and paragraph 8.10.20 of the 7th CPC report prints them. The table below sets each against the cell rate that replaced it from 1 July 2017.

The old structure was not monotonic in rank, which is the feature the two-band design removed. An Air Commodore and above drew Rs. 15,750 a month while a Squadron Leader to Group Captain drew Rs. 21,000, so the allowance fell by Rs. 5,250 on promotion past Group Captain. A Flight Lieutenant at Rs. 16,500 drew more than an Air Commodore. Under cell R1H1 all four of those ranks draw the same Rs. 31,250.

The Government’s own press note describes the change incompletely. The press note on the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017 states at item (x) that the rates of Flying Allowance “will go up from Rs. 10,500 to Rs. 15,750 per month to Rs. 17,300 to Rs. 25,000 per month”. The lower figure matches the Senior Non-Commissioned Officer slab, but Rs. 15,750 was the Air Commodore slab and not the highest of the six: the Squadron Leader to Group Captain slab stood at Rs. 21,000. Read against paragraph 8.10.20, the press note understates the pre-2017 ceiling by Rs. 5,250.

Demands the Committee on Allowances refused

The Defence Forces asked for the Flying Allowance of officers in the ranks of Major to Colonel and their equivalents to be raised to Rs. 31,500 a month, and the Committee on Allowances refused. Paragraph 5.4.10 of the Committee’s report of 27 April 2017 records the demand and the ground for it: the pre-2016 rates of Flying Allowance had stood at par with Siachen Allowance, and Rs. 31,500 was the RH-Max cell rate the 7th CPC had proposed for Siachen.

The ground was factually correct. Siachen Allowance before 2016 was Rs. 21,000 a month for officers, and the Squadron Leader to Group Captain slab of Flying Allowance was also Rs. 21,000. The rationalisation broke that parity, taking Siachen to a carved-out Rs. 42,500 for officers while flying went to Rs. 25,000.

The Committee’s answer was that RH-Max is reserved. Its analysis records that a separate RH-Max cell was created for Siachen Allowance because the 7th CPC took the view that no government employee faces as much risk or hardship as defence personnel posted on the Siachen Glacier, that the Ministry of Defence had made no recommendation on the point, and that the 7th CPC recommendations on Flying Allowance should therefore be accepted without any change. Flying Allowance is one of 32 retained allowances listed at paragraph 8.13 of that report where demands were received and no change was recommended.

The 25% escalator linked to dearness allowance

The Flying Allowance rises by 25% each time dearness allowance rises by 50 percentage points, and the next step falls when dearness allowance reaches 100%. Paragraph 8.10.66 of the 7th CPC report states the rule in one sentence: “The rates will increase further by 25 percent each time DA rises by 50 percent.”

One step has fallen due. Dearness allowance on the revised pay structure stood at 0% on 1 January 2016 and reached 50% with effect from 1 January 2024 under Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024, which is one 50-point rise and one 25% step. Dearness allowance is 60% from 1 January 2026 under Office Memorandum No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026, and 60% is not a second 50-point rise.

The matrix escalator is not the house rent allowance escalator, and the two are routinely confused. House rent allowance was revised upward at dearness allowance crossing 25% and again at 50%, under Office Memorandum No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 7 July 2017. The Risk and Hardship matrix kept the Commission’s original 50-point step. Applying the house rent allowance schedule to the Flying Allowance produces a second 25% step that does not exist and a rate of Rs. 39,062.50 that no order supports.

Dearness allowance is not paid on top of the Flying Allowance either, which the shared name obscures. Paragraph 9 of the Ministry of Defence letter of 18 September 2017 defines the pay on which dearness allowance is computed for the forces, and it is basic pay together with Military Service Pay. The Flying Allowance is a flat monthly figure that moves only at the escalator step.

Position against Siachen, field area and test-pilot rates

Flying duty sits second in the order of severity the matrix records, below Siachen and above every field-area tier. The table sets out the comparison at the rates in force.

The Siachen figures are the base rates as notified in the Resolution of 6 July 2017 and are shown without an escalator step. The allowance carries the RH-Max label and that label carries the 25% step, but no order stating the resulting figures has been traced to a readable primary document, and the high altitude and Siachen allowance page treats them on that basis. Every other row in the table is at the rate from 1 January 2024.

Cell R1H1 is the highest cell anyone draws from. RH-Max sits above it at Rs. 39,375 and Rs. 26,250, and nobody is paid at those rates: paragraph 8.10.67 placed exactly two allowances in RH-Max, Siachen and Antarctica, and the Government removed both before the Resolution took effect. Flying Allowance shares R1H1 with the Special Forces Allowance, the Submarine Allowance, the MARCOS and Chariot Allowance, the CoBRA allowance and Cat-III of the High Altitude Allowance, the specified areas of especially uncongenial climate.

The gap between operational flying and flight testing is the widest inside aviation. A test pilot draws Rs. 6,625 a month at cell R1H3 against Rs. 31,250 for an aircrew member at cell R1H1, a ratio of about one to five, and the two cells are separated by four rate slabs.

Distinction from Military Service Pay

Military Service Pay is a pay element and the Flying Allowance is a duty allowance, and the difference decides three separate questions. Military Service Pay is Rs. 15,500 a month for officers, Rs. 10,800 for Military Nursing Service officers, Rs. 5,200 for Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks and Rs. 3,600 for non-combatants (enrolled), and it is drawn by every eligible member of the forces up to the rank of Brigadier and equivalent whatever the appointment.

The first question is what dearness allowance runs on. Military Service Pay is reckoned as basic pay for dearness allowance, so a Flying Officer’s dearness allowance is computed on Rs. 71,600 rather than on the Rs. 56,100 of the matrix cell. The Flying Allowance is not reckoned for dearness allowance at all.

The second is pension. Military Service Pay enters the reckonable emoluments on which a defence pension is computed; the Flying Allowance does not. The third is duration. Military Service Pay continues across a career irrespective of posting, and the Flying Allowance appears on taking up a flying appointment and disappears on posting to a ground appointment. A pilot draws both, and a non-flying officer of the same rank draws Military Service Pay alone.

Aviation allowances that are not the Flying Allowance

Four other allowances attach to Indian Air Force aviation and none of them is the Flying Allowance. Confusing them is easy because three carry flying in the name or the qualification.

The Test Pilot and Flight Test Engineer Allowance is granted under paragraph 8.10.56 to test pilots and flight test engineers in the defence forces while on the posted strength of, or on detachment to, a unit for test pilot duties. Paragraph 8.10.70 placed it in cell R1H3. Item 9 of Appendix A to the Ministry of Defence letter of 18 September 2017 prints Rs. 5,300 a month for a test pilot and Rs. 4,100 for a flight test engineer, which are Rs. 6,625 and Rs. 5,125 since 1 January 2024, against pre-2016 rates of Rs. 3,000 and Rs. 1,500.

The Aeronautical Allowance is a maintenance allowance, not a flying one. Paragraph 8.9.3 makes it admissible to defence technicians who have qualified in Technical Type Training, Technical Type Conservation Unit, Maintenance Conversion Flight or similar courses and are authorised to maintain or service aircraft. Paragraph 8.9.4 raised it from Rs. 300 to Rs. 450 a month, extended it to Coast Guard personnel, and applied the same 25% escalator, giving Rs. 562.50 a month since 1 January 2024.

The Qualification Allowance rewards flying qualifications held rather than flying duty performed. Paragraph 8.9.25 raised it by a factor of 1.5 with the same escalator and extended it to the Coast Guard. A Master Aviation Instructor went from Rs. 750 to Rs. 1,125 a month, an aviator holding a Master Green Card from Rs. 600 to Rs. 900, an aviator holding a Green Card from Rs. 420 to Rs. 630, and a Category A air traffic, fighter or helicopter controller from Rs. 2,400 to Rs. 3,600. From 1 January 2024 those figures are Rs. 1,406.25, Rs. 1,125, Rs. 787.50 and Rs. 4,500.

The Flight Charge Certificate Allowance no longer exists as a separate allowance. Paragraph 8.3.15 describes it as granted to senior air artificers and mechanicians of ship-borne helicopter flights for clearing aircraft for airworthiness in the absence of a technical officer, at Rs. 600 and Rs. 375 a month, and the 7th CPC abolished it as a separate item and brought those personnel under the Extra Work Allowance. The Flying Squad Allowance, at Rs. 300 a month, has nothing to do with aircraft at all: paragraph 8.10.21 describes it as paid to chief ticket inspectors and travelling ticket examiners of the Indian Railways on surprise ticket-checking duty, and the Commission abolished it.

Effect of leave, temporary duty and suspension

Leave of more than 30 days taken at a stretch stops the Flying Allowance for the whole period of that leave. The 30-day test began as a field-area provision: paragraph 8.10.72 of the 7th CPC report recorded a fifteen-day ceiling for the field-area allowances and recommended that it “should be raised from fifteen days to thirty days”. The Ministry of Home Affairs applied the same test to all Risk and Hardship Allowances by a clarification of 13 September 2019, holding that leave of any kind exceeding 30 days makes the person ineligible for the period, and the Central Reserve Police Force circularised in October 2020 that the bar bites only where more than 30 days is availed at a stretch.

Posting off flying stops it immediately and irrespective of any leave rule, because the allowance answers the duty. An aircrew member moved to a ground appointment ceases to draw the Flying Allowance from the date of the move, and a member who ceases to meet the currency and medical standards that a flying appointment requires ceases to draw it while off flying. This is why two officers of the same rank, at the same level and the same cell, can draw different amounts.

Suspension stops the allowance as a matter of ordinary application, though no order addresses the matrix specifically. Fundamental Rule 53 gives a suspended government servant subsistence allowance, dearness allowance on it, and other compensatory allowances “subject to the fulfilment of other conditions laid down for the drawal of such allowances”. Flying duty cannot be performed during suspension, so the condition cannot be met.

Concurrency with other matrix allowances

Nothing in the matrix permits or bars drawing the Flying Allowance alongside another matrix allowance, and paragraph 8.10.78 of the 7th CPC report leaves the question where it stood: “Concurrent admissibility of allowances, applicable to Defence personnel, shall remain unaltered and its applicability should be extended mutatis mutandis to CAPF personnel posted in field areas.” Paragraph 8.10.66 preserves each allowance’s own conditions of admissibility, so the pre-2016 Ministry of Defence concurrency instructions decide each pair, and those instructions are not uniform across pairs.

There is a ceiling on any single allowance and no cap on the total. Paragraph 8.10.66 makes RH-Max “the ceiling for risk/hardship allowances” and states that the amount of no individual Risk and Hardship Allowance should be more than it, and paragraph 8.10.67 repeats that no such allowance can have a value higher than that one. The operative words are “individual RHA”. No provision of Chapter 8.10, of the Resolution of 6 July 2017 or of the Ministry of Defence letter of 18 September 2017 caps an aggregate of two allowances lawfully drawn together.

The practical question for aircrew is the pairing with an area allowance. An aircrew member on a flying appointment at a high-altitude or field station is drawing the Flying Allowance for the duty and may qualify for a field area allowance or a high-altitude allowance for the location, and whether both are payable turns on the Ministry of Defence instruction governing that specific pair rather than on any provision of the matrix.

Reckonability for pension, gratuity and the NPS contribution

The Flying Allowance counts for none of the three. For armed forces personnel the reckonable emoluments are the pay drawn in the defence pay matrix, Military Service Pay, non-practising allowance where applicable, Group X pay and classification allowance, under Ministry of Defence letter No. 17(01)/2017(02)/D(Pension/Policy) dated 5 September 2017. Flying Allowance is not on that list, and the list is exhaustive.

Civilian aircrew drawing from the same cell are on the CCS rules and the result is the same. Rule 31 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021 defines emoluments for pension as basic pay under the Fundamental Rules 1922 drawn immediately before retirement or death, plus non-practising allowance granted to a medical officer in lieu of private practice, and rule 32 computes average emoluments over the last ten months on the same basis. Retirement gratuity adds the dearness allowance admissible on the date of retirement and nothing else.

The National Pension System contribution base is narrower still. Rule 5(1) of the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules 2021, notified by G.S.R. 227(E) dated 30 March 2021, limits it to basic pay as defined in rule 9(21)(a)(i) of the Fundamental Rules 1922, non-practising allowance in lieu of private practice, and admissible dearness allowance in a calendar month. The Unified Pension Scheme runs on the same base.

The consequence is worth stating in cash. An aircrew officer who draws the Flying Allowance at Rs. 31,250 a month for twenty years of flying appointments receives Rs. 75 lakh over that period and adds nothing whatever to the pension, because the entire amount sits outside the definition of emoluments. Every rupee of pension value comes from the level of the matrix cell and from Military Service Pay.

Tax treatment

The Flying Allowance is fully taxable as salary, and no exemption covers it under either regime. For the tax year 2026-27 the governing law is the Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), in force from 1 April 2026, whose Section 202 carries the default regime formerly in Section 115BAC and whose Schedule III carries the prescribed-allowance exemptions formerly in Section 10(14). The subordinate rules are the Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026.

Under the default regime the restriction is total for this family. An assessee on the default regime keeps only the travel, daily and conveyance allowances and the transport allowance for a disabled employee, and no risk or hardship entry survives it. That covers Siachen Allowance at Rs. 42,500 a month as much as it covers the Flying Allowance at Rs. 31,250.

The old regime is no better for aircrew, because the exemption list never had a flying entry. Rule 2BB(2) of the repealed Income-tax Rules 1962 carried capped exemptions for the high-altitude, field area, modified field area, counter-insurgency and island duty allowances, at figures from Rs. 300 to Rs. 7,000 a month, and the entries carry into the Schedule III scheme unchanged in amount. There is no entry for the Flying Allowance, for the Submarine Allowance, for the Special Forces or CoBRA allowances, or for RH-Max. An aircrew member electing the old regime under Section 115BAC as it stood, or its successor, gains nothing on this allowance by the election. For the comparison across regimes see old versus new tax regime and income tax for central government employees.

Worked examples

Two cases show what the allowance is worth against the rest of the pay, at dearness allowance of 60% from 1 January 2026.

A Flying Officer at cell 1 of Level 10 of the defence pay matrix draws basic pay of Rs. 56,100 and Military Service Pay of Rs. 15,500. Dearness allowance runs on the two together, so 60% of Rs. 71,600 gives Rs. 42,960. The Flying Allowance adds Rs. 31,250. Those four elements total Rs. 1,45,810 a month, of which the Flying Allowance is 21.4%. House rent allowance and the other allowances of the posting sit on top and are computed on basic pay alone.

A Sergeant at cell 1 of Level 5 on aircrew duty draws basic pay of Rs. 29,200 and Military Service Pay of Rs. 5,200. Dearness allowance of 60% on Rs. 34,400 gives Rs. 20,640, and the Flying Allowance adds Rs. 21,625 at the Level 8 and below band. The four elements total Rs. 76,665 a month, of which the Flying Allowance is 28.2%.

The junior case is the more instructive of the two. The Flying Allowance is a larger share of the Sergeant’s pay than of the Flying Officer’s, 28.2% against 21.4%, which is the levelling effect paragraph 8.10.68 designed the averaging method to produce, still visible nine years after the rates were fixed. Neither figure enters pension, so the whole of it is serving pay and none of it is deferred.

Bearing on the 8th Central Pay Commission

No figure for the Flying Allowance under the 8th Central Pay Commission exists, because that commission has not reported. It was constituted by a Ministry of Finance notification dated 3 November 2025, and until it reports and the Government accepts its recommendations the rate is Rs. 31,250 and Rs. 21,625, with the next movement coming from the escalator at dearness allowance of 100% rather than from any commission.

Three questions are open on the record rather than on speculation. Whether the matrix survives as a structure is the first: paragraph 8.10.79 records the 7th CPC’s own view that its approach was not scientific enough and endorses the 5th CPC suggestion that an expert committee map difficulty and hardship across the country, and no such committee has been constituted. Whether the two-band design survives is the second, since it was chosen in 2015 to replace six rank-wise slabs and no review of it has been published. Whether the 50-point escalator survives is the third.

The parity question the Defence Forces raised in 2017 also remains unresolved. Their demand at paragraph 5.4.10 of the Committee on Allowances report was that flying should be restored to parity with Siachen, and the refusal rested on the Commission’s view that Siachen is a class apart rather than on any finding about flying. The gap has since widened, from Rs. 42,500 against Rs. 25,000 at notification to a Siachen rate whose escalated figure has not been published against a flying rate of Rs. 31,250.

Related Articles

• Allowances for central government employees
• Risk and hardship allowance
• High Altitude and Siachen Allowance
• Field area allowance
• Test Pilot and Flight Test Engineer Allowance
• Aeronautical Allowance
• Classification Allowance
• Military Service Pay
• Group X pay
• Defence pay matrix
• Special Duty Allowance
• National Holiday Allowance
• Dress allowance
• Central Armed Police Forces
• CAPF constable salary
• IPS salary
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• Salary by pay level
• Pay matrix
• Basic pay
• Suspension
• Central government pension
• Gratuity for central government employees
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• One Rank One Pension
• Income tax for government employees
• Income-tax Act, 2025
• Old versus new tax regime
• Section 115BAC (default new regime)
• Take-home salary for central government employees
• Department of Expenditure
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Central government employees in India
• 7th CPC salary calculator

External references

• Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, Department of Expenditure
• Report of the Committee on Allowances, 27 April 2017
• Department of Expenditure press note on the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017 on 7th CPC allowances
• Ministry of Defence, revised rates of risk and hardship allowances
• Ministry of Defence
• Indian Air Force
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance

References

1. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (19 November 2015): paragraph 8.10.20 (the six pre-2016 Flying Allowance slabs and the categories eligible), 8.10.21 (Flying Squad Allowance, abolished), 8.10.56 (Test Pilot and Flight Test Engineer Allowance), 8.10.66 (the matrix, the ceiling and the 25% escalator), 8.10.67 (RH-Max), 8.10.68 (cell R1H1, the derivation of Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 17,300, the parity with the MARCOS, Special Forces and Submarine allowances, and the extension to the BSF Air Wing), 8.10.70 (cell R1H3), 8.10.72 (cell R2H2 and the thirty-day leave ceiling), 8.10.78 (concurrent admissibility) and 8.10.79 (the unbuilt hardship index).
2. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission: paragraph 8.3.15 (Flight Charge Certificate Allowance), 8.9.3 and 8.9.4 (Aeronautical Allowance) and 8.9.23 to 8.9.25 (Qualification Allowance for flying qualifications).
3. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017: Government decision on the 7th CPC recommendations relating to allowances, effective 1 July 2017, adopting the Risk and Hardship matrix.
4. Department of Expenditure press note on the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017, item (x): Flying Allowance for flying branch and technical officers of the Defence Forces to be governed by the Risk and Hardship matrix, and extended mutatis mutandis to the BSF Air Wing.
5. Ministry of Defence letter No. 1(16)/2017/D(Pay/Services) dated 18 September 2017, Appendix A item 6 (Flying Allowance at cell R1H1, Rs. 25,000 for officers and Rs. 17,300 for Junior Commissioned Officers, other ranks and Air Force equivalents), item 9 (Test Pilot and Flight Test Engineer Allowance at cell R1H3) and paragraph 9 (the definition of pay for dearness allowance).
6. Report of the Committee on Allowances (27 April 2017): paragraph 5.4.10 (the Ministry of Home Affairs and Defence Forces demands on Flying Allowance and their refusal), paragraph 7.2.2 (allowances granted to Indian Coast Guard personnel at par with naval personnel, Flying Allowance at item vi), paragraph 7.2.5 (continuance of Coast Guard parity without specific mention in the 7th CPC report) and paragraph 8.13 (the 32 retained allowances with demands where no change was recommended).
7. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 (dearness allowance at 50% from 1 January 2024) and Office Memorandum No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026 (dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026).
8. Ministry of Defence letter No. 17(01)/2017(02)/D(Pension/Policy) dated 5 September 2017: reckonable emoluments for armed forces pension, being pay in the defence pay matrix, Military Service Pay, non-practising allowance, Group X pay and classification allowance.
9. CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, rules 31 and 32; CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules 2021, notified by G.S.R. 227(E) dated 30 March 2021, rule 5(1); Fundamental Rule 53.
10. Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), Section 202 and Schedule III; Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026; Rule 2BB(2) of the repealed Income-tax Rules 1962.
11. Ministry of Finance notification dated 3 November 2025 constituting the 8th Central Pay Commission and notifying its terms of reference.