Honorarium and fee

An honorarium is a recurring or non-recurring payment granted to a government servant from the Consolidated Fund of India, as remuneration for special work of an occasional or intermittent character, defined in Fundamental Rule 9(9). A fee is a recurring or non-recurring payment to a government servant from a source other than the Consolidated Fund, whether paid directly or through the intermediary of government, for work done, defined in Fundamental Rule 9(6-A). The essential distinction is the source of the money: an honorarium comes from government funds for extra government work, while a fee comes from an outside person or body for work done for them.

Both need prior sanction, and neither is pay. Those two facts decide most of what follows. The sanction is granted under Fundamental Rule 46, which requires the sanctioning authority to record in writing that it has had regard to FR 11 and to record the reasons justifying the extra remuneration. The exclusion from pay follows from FR 9(21), which does not list either, so neither counts for dearness allowance, pension or the annual increment.

The single figure most often quoted wrong is the fee retention limit. It is Rs. 5,000 in a financial year, not Rs. 1,500. Supplementary Rule 12 was substituted with effect from 15 November 2021 by S.O. 4829(E), the Supplementary (Amendment) Rules 2021, notified under F. No. A-37013/01/2018-Estt.(AL) and published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary No. 4462 of 23 November 2021. The rule as substituted reads: “unless the President by special order otherwise directs, one third of any fees in excess of Rs.5000/- paid to a Government servant in a financial year shall be credited to the Consolidated Fund of India.” Compilations of the Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules still in circulation print the pre-amendment Rs. 1,500, which is why the old figure persists.

Two further points are misunderstood as often. The one-third crediting rule lives in Supplementary Rule 12, a statutory rule, not in FR 46, and since 21 January 1998 it is enforced in five listed situations only. And the honorarium ceilings that actually bind a sanctioning authority are Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 2,500 a year, figures fixed on 23 December 1985 and never revised since.

The honorarium under FR 9(9) and FR 46(b)

An honorarium is a special reward for occasional work, and FR 46(b) sets three tests that all have to be met. The work must be occasional or intermittent in character. It must be either so laborious or of such special merit as to justify a special reward. And, except where special reasons are recorded in writing, sanction is not to be given unless the work was undertaken with the prior consent of the Central Government and its amount was settled in advance.

The third test is the one that defeats most claims. An honorarium settled after the work is finished is a departure from the rule, permitted only on recorded special reasons, so the ordinary sequence is that the amount is agreed before anyone starts.

What the Department of Personnel and Training has narrowed

The Fifth Central Pay Commission’s recommendation is the governing policy and it is restrictive. Office Memorandum No. 17011/3/97-Estt.(Allowance) dated 17 July 1998 reproduces it: honorarium is to be paid “only when the employees are entrusted with duties of a purely occasional nature and under no circumstances should any honorarium be paid for performing any functions that are legitimately part of one’s defined duties and responsibilities”. The same Office Memorandum carries an illustrative annexure of routine items for which honorarium is barred.

Enforcement had to be repeated. Office Memorandum No. 17011/3/2001-Estt.(Allowance) dated 29 March 2001 records that Ministries had continued to sanction honorarium as though the payments fell within their delegated powers, directs that claims from any category of staff including the personal staff of Ministers, Secretaries, Additional Secretaries and Joint Secretaries are not to be entertained, and tells financial advisers to stop forwarding proposals for relaxation. The 7th Central Pay Commission made no recommendation on honorarium, which sits outside the allowance framework it reviewed, so the policy input remains the 5th Central Pay Commission position of 1997.

Work that qualifies

Setting and valuing examination papers, evaluation for a departmental examination, service on a Departmental Promotion Committee or a selection board, membership of a commission or committee, translation, and the verbatim reporting of committee proceedings are the recurring categories. Service as an Inquiry Officer or a Presenting Officer in a departmental inquiry carries its own rate structure, dealt with separately below.

Membership of a Departmental Promotion Committee inside one’s own department is the case where the 17 July 1998 bar most often applies, because sitting on the committee is frequently part of the defined duties of the post rather than occasional work outside them.

The ceilings on honorarium, unchanged since 1985

The operative limits are Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 2,500 a financial year per person, and they have not moved in four decades. Office Memorandum No. 17011/9/85-Estt.(AL) dated 23 December 1985 delegated to Ministries and Departments of the Government of India, and to the Comptroller and Auditor General, full power to sanction honorarium up to a maximum of Rs. 5,000 in each case, and to all Heads of Departments full power up to Rs. 2,500. The figures it replaced were Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500.

Both are annual totals to an individual, not per item of work. A clarification of 31 March 1994, restated in paragraph 5 of the Office Memorandum of 17 July 1998, is explicit that the limits cannot be exceeded by treating different items of work, or the same item performed at different times of the year, as separate for the purpose of calculating the entitlement. Above the limit the case falls outside the delegation altogether.

A separate gate operates below the ceiling. Paragraph 4 of the Office Memorandum of 17 July 1998 requires the approval of the financial adviser where the amount of honorarium payable to an individual in a financial year exceeds Rs. 2,500.

One coincidence causes real confusion, and it is worth naming. Rs. 5,000 is now both the annual honorarium ceiling under the 1985 delegation and the annual fee retention limit under SR 12 as amended in 2021. The two figures come from unrelated instruments, forty years apart, and govern different things.

The other observation the dates support: Rs. 5,000 in December 1985 was a substantial sum, roughly two months of pay for a mid-level officer of the day. It has survived the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Pay Commissions without revision, which is why an honorarium under FR 46(b) is now a token in most cases and why the Inquiry Officer rates had to be taken outside the delegation entirely.

The fee under FR 9(6-A) and FR 46(a)

A fee is money from outside government for a service performed for the payer. FR 46(a) permits a government servant, subject to rules made under FR 46-A and FR 47, to perform a specified service or series of services for a private person or body, or for a public body including one administering a local fund, and to receive remuneration for it, if this can be done without detriment to official duties and responsibilities and “if the service be material”. A note to FR 46(a) excludes the acceptance of fees by medical officers in civil employ for professional attendance, which is regulated separately by SR 9 and SR 10.

The definition in FR 9(6-A) carries four exclusions, and getting them right matters because they decide whether the crediting rule can apply at all. Excluded are unearned income such as income from property, dividends and interest on securities; income from literary, cultural, artistic, scientific or technological efforts; and income from participation in sports activities as an amateur. Book royalties on original work, investment income and amateur sports receipts are therefore not a fee in this sense.

One qualifier commonly attached to the literary and scientific limb, that the effort must not be aided by knowledge acquired in the course of service, does not appear in the central rule. It belongs to a state adaptation of the Fundamental Rules, principally the Uttar Pradesh version, and should not be applied to a central government servant.

Patent income is treated separately again. FR 48-A bars a government servant whose duties involve scientific or technical research from applying for or obtaining a patent for an invention made by him, or causing another to do so, except with the permission of the Central Government and on the conditions it imposes, and FR 48-B makes the Central Government’s decision final on whether an officer falls within FR 48-A.

Retaining a fee: SR 12 and the one-third crediting rule

The crediting obligation is statutory and sits in Supplementary Rule 12, not in FR 46. As substituted with effect from 15 November 2021, SR 12 requires that one third of any fees in excess of Rs. 5,000 paid to a government servant in a financial year be credited to the Consolidated Fund of India, unless the President by special order otherwise directs.

The amendment history is short and each step is traceable. The principal rules were first amended by S.O. No. 2358 dated 28 August 1981. They were last amended before 2021 by S.O. No. 747 dated 30 March 2001, which is the notification that put Rs. 1,500 into the rule, following the administrative decision announced in the Office Memorandum of 21 January 1998. S.O. 4829(E) dated 15 November 2021 substituted Rs. 5,000.

One point of precision on the effective date. The Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. A-37013/01/2018-Estt.(AL) dated 8 September 2022, which circulated the change to all Ministries, states that the limit stands enhanced from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 5,000 with effect from 15 November 2021. Rule 1(2) of the amendment rules themselves provides that they come into force on the date of their publication in the Official Gazette, and the Gazette issue is No. 4462 of 23 November 2021. Administration follows the Office Memorandum date.

How the credit is computed

The mechanics come from the Office Memorandum of 21 January 1998 and survive the change of figure. A government servant retains the full fee up to the limit in a financial year. Above it, one third of the fee is credited to general revenues, subject to the condition that the amount retained does not fall short of the limit.

Recurring and non-recurring fees are dealt with separately and are not added together for the purpose of computing the credit. For a non-recurring fee the limit applies to each individual case. For a recurring fee it applies to the total received in the financial year.

The credit is not a deduction the payer makes. It is remitted by the government servant into the Consolidated Fund through the Drawing and Disbursing Officer of the office, against the sanction that permitted the work, and the crediting order is the document worth retaining for the tax question dealt with below.

The five cases in which the credit is actually enforced

The rule as applied is far narrower than the rule as drafted, and this is where most published summaries are wrong. Paragraph 2 of the Office Memorandum dated 21 January 1998 provides that where prior sanction of the competent authority for undertaking the outside work and for the acceptance of the fee has already been taken under SR 11 or Rule 15 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules, the SR 12 crediting requirement is enforced in the following cases only:

1. Sale proceeds or royalties on a book that is a mere compilation of government rules, regulations and procedures. The deduction can be relaxed with the concurrence of the Department of Personnel and Training on a certificate, from an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary, that the book is not a mere compilation but reveals the author’s scholarly study of the subject. Where the author is himself of Joint Secretary rank or above, the certificate comes from the next higher officer.
2. Clerical, administrative or technical work of an occasional or casual nature performed for a private body under SR 11, “private body” including all co-operative societies and societies registered under the Societies Registration Act that are not under government administrative control.
3. Income from publishing a book or contributing an article on subjects other than literary, cultural, technological and scientific subjects, management sciences included.
4. Income from a regular remunerative occupation in the nature of part-time employment permitted under Rule 15 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules.
5. Income from the exploitation of a patent taken out without the permission of the competent authority, which ties back to FR 48-A.

Supplementary Rule 12 carries its own exemptions on top. No crediting applies to fees received from universities and other statutory bodies such as the Institute of Chartered Accountants, or from autonomous bodies wholly or substantially financed by government grants or loans, for services connected with examinations those bodies conduct or for delivering lectures. The same holds for similar services rendered to public sector undertakings and enterprises wholly or substantially owned by government, even where they are not examining bodies.

The practical consequence is that for properly sanctioned outside work falling outside those five categories, no part of the fee is credited, whatever the amount. A government servant remitting one third of a lecture fee from a central university is remitting money that the rules do not ask for.

Honorarium, fee, allowance, overtime, gift and reward

Six payments are routinely confused with one another, and the governing rule differs in each case.

The line between an honorarium and an allowance is the character of the work, not the amount. An allowance compensates a condition of service that persists, and it is drawn as a matter of entitlement once the condition is satisfied. An honorarium rewards a discrete task, needs a sanction each time, and cannot lawfully become regular.

Overtime allowance differs on a different axis. It pays for extra hours spent on the same duties, at rates fixed per hour by category, whereas an honorarium pays for a different kind of work altogether. Night duty allowance and the allowances the 7th CPC abolished or subsumed belong to the allowance family, not to FR 46.

FR 48 sits outside the sanction regime entirely. A government servant may receive and retain, without special permission, the premium awarded for an essay or plan in a public competition; a reward offered for the arrest of a criminal or for information or special service in connection with the administration of justice; a reward under any Act, Regulation or rules made under them; a reward sanctioned for services in connection with the administration of the customs and excise laws; and fees payable for duties required to be performed in an official capacity under a special or local law or by order of government.

Who sanctions, and what the sanction order must record

FR 47 is an enabling power and contains no figures. It allows the Central Government to make rules prescribing the conditions and limits subject to which subordinate authorities may sanction the grant or acceptance of honoraria and the acceptance of fees, other than fees taken by medical officers in civil employ for professional attendance. The figures come from the delegation of 23 December 1985.

What the sanction order has to contain is set by FR 46(c), and it is not a formality. In the case of both fees and honoraria, the sanctioning authority is required to record in writing that due regard has been paid to the general principle in FR 11, and to record the reasons that in its opinion justify the grant of the extra remuneration.

FR 11 is the principle being displaced, which is why the recital exists. It provides that unless otherwise distinctly provided, the whole time of a government servant is at the disposal of the government that pays him, and that he may be employed in any manner required by proper authority without claim for additional remuneration, whether the services required are such as would ordinarily be remunerated from general revenues, from a local fund, or from the funds of a body wholly or substantially owned or controlled by government. Extra work, in other words, carries no extra money by default. FR 46 is the exception, and the recital is the record that the exception was consciously made.

The claim then follows the ordinary expenditure route. The sanction is issued, the amount having been settled in advance, and the Drawing and Disbursing Officer draws it on a separate bill against that sanction rather than through the pay bill. Where the sanctioning office is not the office that pays the salary, nothing appears on the parent office pay slip at all, which is the usual reason an honorarium is overlooked at the time of filing a return.

A payment made without sanction is not a private matter between the payer and the recipient. It is an unauthorised payment liable to audit objection and recovery, and where the work itself was outside employment taken without permission, it is separately a breach of Rule 15 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules and therefore a disciplinary matter under the CCS (CCA) Rules 1965.

Three permissions: SR 11, Conduct Rule 15 and FR 46

Outside work engages three provisions at once, and a government servant who obtains one permission and not the others is exposed.

Supplementary Rule 11 provides that no government servant may undertake work for another Government, or for a private or public body or a private person, or accept a fee for it, without the sanction of the competent authority, who must certify, unless the government servant is on leave, that the work can be undertaken without detriment to official duties and responsibilities. The no-detriment certificate is dispensed with during leave; the sanction is not.

Rule 15(1) of the CCS (Conduct) Rules requires previous sanction for undertaking other employment or engaging in any trade or business. Rule 15(4) bars the acceptance of a fee for work done for a private or public body or a private person without the sanction of the prescribed authority, and adopts the FR 9(6-A) definition of fee for that purpose. Rule 15(2) permits five things without sanction, including honorary work of a social or charitable nature and occasional work of a literary, artistic or scientific character, which maps onto the FR 9(6-A) exclusion.

FR 46(a) is the enabling rule that makes the permission possible, and FR 46(c) fixes what the sanctioning authority must record. Rule 16, which governs investment, lending and borrowing, does not bear on a fee at all and is not the gate.

The Office Memorandum of 21 January 1998 treats sanction “under SR-11 or Rule 15 of CCS (Conduct) Rules” as the single trigger that switches off the crediting requirement outside its five listed cases, which shows that in practice the conduct permission and the pay sanction are worked as one office order even though they answer to different rules.

The position during leave is governed by the same provisions. Service as an examiner, casual literary work and limited private practice, where already permitted, are outside the bar on employment during leave, and each remains a fee under FR 9(6-A) subject to the sanction requirement.

Honorarium for Inquiry Officers and Presenting Officers

This is the one honorarium on the FR 46 side that is standardised centrally and that runs to real money. The current rates are in Office Memorandum No. DOPT-1668597747466 dated 16 November 2022, issued by the AVD-I division of the Department of Personnel and Training in supersession of the Office Memoranda of 31 July 2012 and 15 September 2017, and expressed as percentages rather than as flat per-case amounts.

A retired Inquiry Officer additionally draws transport allowance of Rs. 40,000 per case, with actual air or rail fare for an outstation journey reimbursed on top at the class he was entitled to at retirement, subject to the approval of the competent authority and the air-travel booking instructions in force. Daily allowance is the same as immediately before retirement. Secretarial assistance is Rs. 40,000, Rs. 30,000 or Rs. 20,000 on the same three witness bands.

The Office Memorandum applies to departmental proceedings including inquiries by a committee on sexual harassment. A cadre or an autonomous body with its own rules on the subject may continue with them, and a fully or partially funded autonomous body may retain its own provisions so long as they are not more beneficial than the 2022 rates. The inquiry report is to be submitted within 180 days of appointment, extendable only by the prescribed authority. Payment is conditional on the case records and two ink-signed copies of the report being handed to the office of the disciplinary authority, and the Inquiry Officer must give an undertaking that he is not a witness, complainant, close relative or known friend of the charged officer, and must maintain secrecy.

Two conditions widely reproduced elsewhere are no longer in force. The cap of 10 cases a year with not more than 2 at a time for a serving officer, and the reduction of honorarium by 50% for delay, come from the superseded Office Memorandum No. 134/4/99-AVD.I dated 29 June 2001. Neither appears in the 2022 Office Memorandum, which substitutes the 180-day deadline.

Because these amounts routinely exceed the Rs. 5,000 delegation ceiling, Inquiry Officer and Presenting Officer honorarium is administered outside the FR 46(b) delegation.

Standardised rates elsewhere, and where none exists

Only two other central rates could be traced, and both are stale in real terms.

Translation work is covered by Office Memorandum No. 17011/04/2011-Estt.(Allowances) dated 1 April 2011, in partial modification of the Office Memorandum of 31 March 1994. For translation from a regional language into English or Hindi and the reverse, the rate is Rs. 120 per thousand words of ordinary material and Rs. 130 per thousand words of technical material including codes and manuals, subject to a ceiling of Rs. 5,000 a year in each case. The rates it replaced were Rs. 60 and Rs. 65.

Verbatim reporting is covered by Office Memorandum No. 17011/10/2001-Estt.(Allowance) dated 11 February 2004, which revised the rate for reporters, interpreters and stenographers reporting the proceedings of ad hoc committees and conferences from Rs. 80 to Rs. 250 a day, within the ceiling fixed by the Office Memorandum of 17 July 1998.

For examination work there is no central rate at all, and that is the answer rather than a gap in it. Paper setting, evaluation and invigilation for a departmental examination are remunerated at rates fixed by the cadre-controlling authority, and they differ between departments. Whatever the departmental rate, the annual FR 46(b) ceiling of Rs. 5,000 or Rs. 2,500 still binds the total payable to an individual in the year. Examination work for the Union Public Service Commission is more naturally an honorarium from the Consolidated Fund than a fee, since the Commission is a constitutional body rather than one of the statutory or autonomous bodies named in the SR 12 exemption.

Honorarium to non-officials and to retired officers

A person who is not a government servant is outside FR 46 altogether, and the instrument is not the General Financial Rules 2017, which contain no rule on the subject. Sitting fees for non-officials on committees, panels and boards are governed by Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19047/10/2016-E-IV dated 12 April 2017. The administrative Secretary decides the fee in consultation with the financial adviser and with the Minister’s approval, within a maximum per day of sitting of Rs. 10,000 for a High Level Committee, Rs. 6,000 for a Technical or Expert Committee and Rs. 4,000 for other committees, and not more than 10 meetings a month in any category. Only a person not employed in any institution, organisation or body funded by the Central Government counts as a non-official, and a government employee nominated to such a committee is not entitled to a sitting fee at all.

A retired government servant engaged as an Inquiry Officer is in a third position again. FR 46 speaks of a government servant, so it does not reach a pensioner in his own right, and the payment is administered under the AVD-I engagement instructions and delegated financial powers rather than under FR 46(b). It does not affect pension: the engagement is not re-employment and no abatement arises. The separate constraint on a retired officer is Rule 9 of the CCS (Pension) Rules 2021, which requires prior permission for commercial employment within one year of retirement for a Group A officer, and engagement as an Inquiry Officer by a Ministry is not commercial employment.

For an officer on deputation or on foreign service, the Fundamental Rules continue to apply. Under FR 113 a government servant transferred to foreign service remains in his parent cadre, and under FR 114 his pay with the foreign employer is fixed by the authority sanctioning the transfer in consultation with that employer. FR 46 and the Conduct Rules therefore continue to bind, and the sanctioning authority is the one competent under the terms of deputation settled by the lending authority.

Neither is pay

The definition of pay in FR 9(21) covers pay sanctioned for a post held substantively or in an officiating capacity or to which the officer is entitled by his position in a cadre, overseas pay, special pay, personal pay, and any other emoluments specially classed as pay by the President. Honorarium and fee appear nowhere in it. The exclusion is by omission rather than by an express carve-out, and the only theoretical route in is the President classing something as pay under the third limb, which has not been done for either.

What follows is a list of things an honorarium does not do. It does not count for dearness allowance or house rent allowance. It does not enter emoluments for pension or gratuity. It does not affect the annual increment or enter pay fixation on promotion or revision, and it does not follow through into the pension the way basic pay does. It is not part of the General Provident Fund subscription base, and it is not part of the contribution base under the National Pension System, both of which are computed on basic pay plus dearness allowance.

That is precisely why the mechanism exists. A one-off task can be rewarded without disturbing the pay matrix or creating a recurring liability, which is also why the 17 July 1998 policy insists it must never become a regular addition to pay.

Disclosure is a separate question and is often over-answered. The annual return under Rule 18 of the CCS (Conduct) Rules covers immovable property and prescribed transactions in movable property, not receipts of income, so an honorarium is not reported there. The disclosure that does bite is the prior sanction under Rule 15 for the work and the fee.

The tax position under the Income-tax Act 2025

Both are taxable and there is no exemption for either. What changes is the head of income, and with it the rate mechanism, the deduction at source and the certificate the recipient receives.

The head of income

Section 13 of the Income-tax Act 2025 classifies income under five heads. Where an honorarium arises out of or is connected with the employment, it is chargeable under Salaries, and the authority is direct: Section 16 defines salary and limb (d) is “any fees or commission”. The charge itself is in Section 15(1), which brings to tax salary due from an employer whether paid or not, salary paid though not due, and arrears not charged in an earlier year. Section 15(2) provides that employer includes a former employer. The corresponding provisions of the Income-tax Act 1961, now superseded, were Sections 14, 15 and 17(1).

Where the payment is unconnected with the office, the residuary charge in Section 92(1) brings it under Income from other sources, with deductions for that head in Section 93. Where the activity is sustained enough to amount to the exercise of a profession or vocation rather than an isolated receipt, Section 26 charges it under Profits and gains of business or profession. The 1961 equivalents were Sections 56(1), 57 and 28.

One renumbering trap is worth noting for anyone moving between the two Acts. Under the 1961 Act, Section 16 was deductions from salary and Section 17 the definition. Under the 2025 Act it is Section 16 for the definition and Section 19 for the deductions.

Deduction at source

The test is the employment relationship, not the label on the payment.

Section 392 obliges any person responsible for paying income chargeable under Salaries to deduct tax on the amount payable, and it is the salary TDS machinery that already applies to the monthly pay. Section 393, read with serial number 6(iii) of its Table, covers fees for professional services and fees for technical services, with a threshold of Rs. 50,000 for the year. Any source still quoting Rs. 30,000 predates 1 April 2025. The 1961 equivalents were Sections 192 and 194J.

The practical failure is a shortfall rather than an underpayment by the deductor. An honorarium paid by an office other than the one drawing the salary is deducted at 10% while the recipient may be liable at a higher slab rate, and the gap surfaces at filing. It can be closed either by reporting the other income to the Drawing and Disbursing Officer so that the salary deduction absorbs it, or by paying advance tax. The choice of tax regime affects the size of the gap but not its existence.

Where the honorarium is taxed under Salaries, it joins the salary aggregate against which the single standard deduction in Section 19(1) is allowed, being Rs. 75,000 where tax is computed under Section 202(1) and Rs. 50,000 otherwise. It does not generate a second deduction, and an honorarium taxed under Section 92 attracts none at all.

The unsettled question on the credited one-third

Whether a government servant is taxed on the gross fee or only on the portion retained after the SR 12 credit is not settled by any authority. No provision of the Income-tax Act 2025, no circular of the Central Board of Direct Taxes and no reported decision addresses it.

Two readings are open. On the first, SR 12 diverts the one third at source by overriding title, so it never accrues to the government servant and only the retained portion is his income. On the second, the whole fee accrues and the crediting is an application of income already earned, so the gross is taxable. The deductor will ordinarily have deducted on the gross.

Anyone in this position should keep both the deduction certificate and the departmental order crediting the amount to the Consolidated Fund, and settle the treatment with a tax adviser for the year in question. The income tax article for government employees covers the deductions and the return.

Related Articles

• Allowances for central government employees
• Fundamental Rules
• CCS Conduct Rules
• CCS (CCA) Rules 1965
• CCS Leave Rules
• Departmental inquiry
• Inquiry Officer
• Presenting Officer
• Departmental Promotion Committee
• Drawing and Disbursing Officer
• Immovable property return
• Charge allowance and current duty
• Overtime allowance
• Night duty allowance
• Abolished allowances under the 7th CPC
• Cash handling and treasury allowance
• Vigilance allowance
• Non-practising allowance
• Children education allowance
• Ad hoc bonus and non-PLB
• Take-home salary for central government employees
• Basic pay
• Pay fixation
• Pay fixation on promotion
• Pay matrix
• Grade pay
• Annual increment
• Dearness allowance
• House-rent allowance
• Deputation in central government
• Joining time
• Lien
• Seniority in central government service
• General Provident Fund
• National Pension System
• Central government pension
• Gratuity for central government employees
• Leave encashment
• Income tax for government employees
• TDS on salary
• Form 16
• Form 26AS
• Advance tax
• Standard deduction
• Old versus new tax regime
• 5th Central Pay Commission
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Union Public Service Commission
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Department of Expenditure
• Central government employees in India
• 7th CPC salary calculator

External references

• Department of Personnel and Training
• DoPT establishment orders
• DoPT circulars: allowances
• Department of Expenditure
• The Gazette of India
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Fundamental Rules, FR 9(6-A) (definition of fee, with the exclusions for unearned income, for literary, cultural, artistic, scientific and technological effort, and for amateur sport), FR 9(9) (definition of honorarium) and FR 9(21) (definition of pay, which omits both).
2. Fundamental Rules, FR 11 (whole time of a government servant at the disposal of government), FR 46 (fees under FR 46(a), honoraria under FR 46(b), and the recording of reasons under FR 46(c)), FR 46-A (medical officers), FR 47 (power to prescribe conditions and limits), FR 48 (rewards retainable without special permission) and FR 48-A and FR 48-B (patents).
3. Supplementary Rules, SR 9 and SR 10 (fees of medical officers in civil employ), SR 11 (sanction for work for another government, a private or public body or a private person) and SR 12 (crediting of one third of fees to the Consolidated Fund of India).
4. Supplementary (Amendment) Rules, 2021, notification S.O. 4829(E) dated 15 November 2021, F. No. A-37013/01/2018-Estt.(AL), substituting SR 12 and raising the fee retention limit to Rs. 5,000 in a financial year, published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part II, Section 3, Sub-section (ii), No. 4462 of 23 November 2021.
5. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. A-37013/01/2018-Estt.(AL) dated 8 September 2022 (circulating the enhancement from Rs. 1,500 to Rs. 5,000 with effect from 15 November 2021).
6. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 16013/1/93-Estt.(Allowances) dated 21 January 1998 (retention limit, the one-third crediting mechanics, and the five cases in which crediting is enforced), modifying Office Memorandum No. 16013/1/79-Estt.(Allowances) dated 11 February 1980 read with Office Memorandum No. 16011/3/81-Estt.(Allowances) dated 19 May 1981 and 15 October 1983.
7. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 17011/9/85-Estt.(AL) dated 23 December 1985 (delegation of powers to sanction honorarium: Rs. 5,000 for Ministries and the Comptroller and Auditor General, Rs. 2,500 for Heads of Departments).
8. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 17011/3/97-Estt.(Allowance) dated 17 July 1998 (Fifth Central Pay Commission follow-up: bar on honorarium for defined duties, the illustrative annexure, the Rs. 2,500 financial adviser gate, and the limits as annual totals).
9. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 17011/3/2001-Estt.(Allowance) dated 29 March 2001 (enforcement of the honorarium restrictions).
10. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. DOPT-1668597747466 dated 16 November 2022 (honorarium to Inquiry Officers and Presenting Officers), in supersession of Office Memorandum No. 142/15/2010-AVD.I dated 31 July 2012 and Office Memorandum No. 142/40/2015-AVD.I dated 15 September 2017.
11. Department of Personnel and Training Office Memorandum No. 17011/04/2011-Estt.(Allowances) dated 1 April 2011 (translation rates) and Office Memorandum No. 17011/10/2001-Estt.(Allowance) dated 11 February 2004 (verbatim reporting rates).
12. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19047/10/2016-E-IV dated 12 April 2017 (sitting fees for non-officials on committees, panels and boards).
13. Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964, Rule 13 (gifts), Rule 15 (private trade or employment, and acceptance of fees under Rule 15(4)) and Rule 18 (property returns).
14. Income-tax Act 2025, Sections 13, 15, 16, 19, 26, 92, 93, 202, 392 and 393 (heads of income, the charge under Salaries, the definition of salary, deductions from salary, business and profession, income from other sources, and deduction of tax at source), replacing Sections 14, 15, 16, 17, 28, 56, 57, 192 and 194J of the Income-tax Act 1961.