Nursing Allowance

The Nursing Allowance is a flat Rs. 9,000 a month paid to every central government nurse, at every grade, over and above the basic pay of the level and the standard allowances. The base rate is Rs. 7,200, fixed with effect from 1 July 2017 by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017, and the current figure is that base plus the 25% escalator that fell due when dearness allowance reached 50% on 1 January 2024.

The flat design is the unusual part. A first-year Nursing Officer on a Level 7 entry basic of Rs. 44,900 and a Nursing Superintendent on a basic above Rs. 1,00,000 draw the identical Rs. 9,000, because paragraph 1 of the 2017 order fixes a single rate for “Nursing Personnel of all categories at all levels” rather than a scale. Paragraph 3 adds that the allowance is payable to all nurses whether working in dispensaries or in hospitals, so the posting does not change it either.

The Rs. 7,200 is a Government figure and not a pay commission figure, which matters to anyone tracing it to its source. Paragraph 8.17.85 of the 7th Central Pay Commission report recommended no change at all to the then rate of Rs. 4,800. The Committee on Allowances reopened it, recommended a multiplication factor of 1.5, and the Cabinet approved the modification on 28 June 2017.

For the pay of the post the allowance attaches to, see the Staff Nurse salary page.

What the Nursing Allowance is

Nursing Allowance is a duty allowance attached to the nursing cadre rather than to a hospital, a posting or a pay level. Any member of the nursing service in a covered institution draws it while working in a nursing role, at the same Rs. 9,000 throughout a career.

Before 1 July 2017 the term covered four separate payments. Paragraph 8.17.83 of the 7th Central Pay Commission report records them: Nursing Allowance at Rs. 4,800 a month, uniform allowance at Rs. 750, washing allowance at Rs. 450 and messing allowance at Rs. 75. The 2017 restructuring left the Nursing Allowance standing on its own, folded the uniform and washing allowances into a new Dress Allowance, and abolished the messing allowance.

The allowance sits on top of the ordinary pay structure. A government nurse’s monthly pay is built from the basic pay of the level in the pay matrix, the dearness allowance on that basic, the house-rent allowance for the city, the transport allowance, and then the Nursing Allowance as a fixed addition that none of those rates touch.

The current amount and the 25% escalator

The Nursing Allowance is Rs. 9,000 a month, being the Rs. 7,200 base plus a 25% step. Paragraph 2 of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017 fixes the base with effect from 1 July 2017 and provides that the rate “will go up by 25% each time Dearness Allowance payable on revised pay scales rises by 50%”. That escalator is the one paragraph 8.17.85 of the 7th CPC report wrote, and the Committee on Allowances left it untouched when it raised the base.

The first step fell on 1 January 2024. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 took dearness allowance to 50% with effect from that date, which met the condition in paragraph 2 and lifted Rs. 7,200 to Rs. 9,000. The Health Ministry authorised the increase by a further order of the same file number dated 17 September 2024, which restates the mechanism and points back to the 2017 rate rather than printing the new figure, so Rs. 9,000 is arithmetic on the base rather than a fresh amount fixed in an order.

The next step is 40 percentage points away. Dearness allowance stands at 60% from 1 January 2026 under Office Memorandum No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026, and the escalator reads on multiples of 50%, so the Nursing Allowance moves again only when dearness allowance reaches 100%, at which point it becomes Rs. 10,800. Nothing between 60% and 100% changes it.

The route from Rs. 4,800 to Rs. 7,200

The Government departed from the pay commission on this allowance, and the sequence is on the record in three documents. Paragraph 8.17.84 of the 7th CPC report notes demands to increase the rate to three times its value. Paragraph 8.17.85 refused: “The Commission is of the view that Nursing Allowance is already at an appropriate level. Hence, no change in the rate of Nursing Allowance is recommended.”

The Committee on Allowances, which examined the 7th CPC’s allowance recommendations before they were notified, took a different view at paragraph 5.5.7 of its report of 27 April 2017. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had asked for a multiplying factor of 1.5 and the National Council (Staff Side) of the Joint Consultative Machinery for 2.25. The Committee recorded that the rate “has not been revised by the 7th CPC although it is partially linked to DA” and recommended the 1.5 factor, taking Rs. 4,800 to Rs. 7,200 a month, at an estimated additional cost of Rs. 49 crore a year benefiting approximately 17,000 personnel.

The Cabinet approved that modification on 28 June 2017, one of 34 modifications it made to the Commission’s allowance recommendations. The decision was published in the Gazette of India on 6 July 2017 by the Department of Expenditure Resolution, which records under the heading of allowances paid to nurses and ministerial staff of hospitals that the “Government increased rate of Nursing Allowance from Rs. 4,800 pm to Rs. 7,200 pm”. The Health Ministry issued the implementing Office Memorandum on 31 August 2017 with effect from 1 July 2017.

So the accurate attribution is that the 7th Central Pay Commission recommended no change, the Committee on Allowances recommended the increase, and the Cabinet approved it. Sources that credit the Rs. 7,200 to the Commission are wrong on the face of paragraph 8.17.85.

Who is eligible

Eligibility runs to the whole nursing cadre in the central health establishment. The Office Memorandum of 31 August 2017 sanctions the revised rate for “Nursing Personnel of all categories at all levels working in Central Government/ UT Hospitals/ Institutions and Centrally funded autonomous Bodies”, and names AIIMS New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh and JIPMER Puducherry as examples of the third class. Paragraph 3 removes the remaining distinction: the allowance is payable to all nurses whether working in dispensaries or in hospitals.

The circulation list of that order shows the reach in practice. It was endorsed to the Director General of Health Services, the Central Government Health Scheme, the Directors of AIIMS New Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, JIPMER Puducherry and NEIGRIHMS Shillong, and to the medical superintendents of Safdarjung Hospital, Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Lady Hardinge and Kalawati Saran Hospital and the RAK College of Nursing in Delhi, along with all ministries and departments and the Chief Secretaries and Administrators of the Union Territories.

Other central employers adopt the rate rather than setting their own. Because the Health Ministry fixes the amount for the central government, the Railways, the Central Armed Police Forces and research bodies such as the Indian Council of Agricultural Research issue parallel orders at the same figure, so a nurse in a railway hospital draws the same Rs. 9,000 as one at Safdarjung.

The Armed Forces sit outside this order. Its scope reaches central government and Union Territory hospitals and institutions and centrally funded autonomous bodies, which does not extend to the Military Nursing Service, whose officers are governed by Ministry of Defence orders and are separated from civilian nurses in the Dress Allowance schedule as well.

Exclusion of nursing personnel from the patient-care allowances

Nurses do not draw the Hospital Patient Care Allowance or the Patient Care Allowance, and the exclusion is express rather than inferred. Paragraph 8.10.29 of the 7th Central Pay Commission report defines the Patient Care Allowance as admissible to Group C and Group D non-ministerial employees “excluding nursing personnel” working in health care delivery institutions other than hospitals with fewer than 30 beds, and the Hospital Patient Care Allowance for similarly placed employees working in hospitals. The qualifying work is continuous and routine contact with patients infected with communicable diseases, or routine handling of infected materials, instruments and equipment.

The exclusion was argued and refused, not assumed. Paragraph 5.5.4 of the Report of the Committee on Allowances of 27 April 2017 records that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare asked for cell R1H2 of the risk and hardship matrix for doctors and cell R1H3 for nursing personnel. The Committee declined both, noting that “Doctors are granted NPA and the Nurses get Nursing Allowance”, that non-practising allowance runs at 20% of basic pay, and that the Nursing Allowance was itself being raised by a factor of 1.5 in the same report.

The two payments sit in different parts of the pay system. The patient-care allowances occupy cell R1H3 of the Risk and Hardship Allowance matrix, at base rates of Rs. 4,100 a month for Level 8 and below and Rs. 5,300 for Level 9 and above, which became Rs. 5,125 and Rs. 6,625 from 1 January 2024. The Nursing Allowance is a flat Rs. 7,200 base outside the matrix, now Rs. 9,000.

Eligibility for the patient-care allowances has moved twice since 2017 and no longer matches the Group C and Group D description in the report, though nursing personnel remain excluded throughout. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/119/2012-H dated 18 September 2019 extended both allowances to Group A and Group B non-ministerial allied healthcare professionals, and Office Memorandum No. V.28017/23/2018-H-II dated 21 April 2023 withdrew them from ministerial staff of all groups.

The practical effect is that a nurse and a hospital attendant working the same ward draw from different sources, and no nurse draws both. At Rs. 9,000 against Rs. 6,625 the Nursing Allowance is the higher of the two at current rates.

Operation Theatre Allowance for ICU and operation theatre nurses

Nurses posted to intensive care units and operation theatres draw a second allowance of Rs. 540 a month on top of the Nursing Allowance. Paragraph 8.10.35 of the 7th Central Pay Commission report describes the Operation Theatre Allowance as granted to 35% of the staff nurses in central government hospitals who work in ICUs or operation theatres, at a then rate of Rs. 240 a month, and the Commission recommended abolishing it outright.

The Government declined to abolish it. The Department of Expenditure Resolution published in the Gazette on 6 July 2017 records, in the same list of decisions that raised the Nursing Allowance, that the Operation Theatre Allowance was “not abolished and rates increased from Rs. 360 pm to Rs. 540 pm”. The two primary sources state different pre-revised figures, Rs. 240 in the report and Rs. 360 in the Resolution, but they agree on the outcome: the allowance survived and is payable at Rs. 540 a month.

The allowance is a posting-linked payment, unlike the Nursing Allowance. A Nursing Officer moved out of the operation theatre to a general ward stops drawing it and keeps the Rs. 9,000. It is one of the twelve allowances out of 53 that the Government declined to abolish, a group covered on the abolished allowances page.

Dress Allowance for nurses, and the monthly versus annual conflict

Nursing personnel draw a Dress Allowance of Rs. 2,250 a month alongside the Nursing Allowance. The base is Rs. 1,800 a month, fixed by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017 with effect from 1 July 2017, and it carries the same 25% escalator, so it rose to Rs. 2,250 when dearness allowance reached 50% on 1 January 2024. That is Rs. 27,000 a year.

The allowance replaced two older payments. Paragraph 8.17.86 of the 7th CPC report subsumed the uniform allowance of Rs. 750 a month and the washing allowance of Rs. 450 a month into the new Dress Allowance and directed that they not be payable separately, and abolished the messing allowance of Rs. 75 a month as petty in nature.

The nurses’ rate is monthly by deliberate decision, and it is separate from the general Dress Allowance schedule for that reason. Paragraph 8.16.14 of the 7th CPC report had placed Military Nursing Service officers and civilian nurses together in a Rs. 15,000 a year row, credited once a year in July. The Committee on Allowances calculated that this would give nurses an increase of 4% and carved them out: recommendation (ii) of its report of 27 April 2017 directed that the uniform-related allowances for nurses be raised by the 1.5 factor and that “the amount of Dress Allowance so arrived at may be paid to Nurses on a monthly basis in view of high maintenance and hygiene requirements”, arriving at Rs. 1,800 per month. The Government accepted it, and item 4 of its decisions published in the Gazette on 6 July 2017 records that it “decided to pay Dress Allowance to Nurses on monthly basis due to high maintenance and hygiene requirements”.

The Health Ministry implementing order contradicts the decision it implements. Condition (ii) of the Office Memorandum of 31 August 2017 states that the amount “shall be credited to the salary of employees directly once a year in the month of July”, which is the generic condition from paragraph 4 of Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19051/1/2017-E.IV dated 2 August 2017 reproduced without adjustment for the carve-out. The rate in the same order is expressed per month. The Cabinet decision and the Gazette Resolution are the higher authority and both say monthly, so the annual condition is a drafting slip rather than a live restriction, and establishments that pay it monthly are following the Government’s decision.

The nursing cadre and the flat rate

The central government nursing service is a graded cadre and the Nursing Allowance runs flat across all of it. Entry is as a Nursing Officer, the designation that replaced Staff Nurse, at Level 7 of the pay matrix with an entry basic of Rs. 44,900. The cadre then rises through the Senior Nursing Officer or Nursing Sister grade, the Assistant Nursing Superintendent, the Nursing Superintendent and the Chief Nursing Officer, with the pay level stepping up at each promotion.

The allowance does not step up with it. At a flat Rs. 9,000 it is the same figure for a first-year Nursing Officer and for a Nursing Superintendent, which makes it worth about a fifth of basic pay at entry and a much smaller share at the top of the cadre. The order fixes one rate for all categories at all levels, so promotion within the nursing line changes the basic pay and every percentage-linked allowance but leaves this one alone.

The allowance also survives a move between employers. A Nursing Officer who transfers from a Health Ministry hospital to a railway hospital or a centrally funded institute carries the same Rs. 9,000, because each employer adopts the Health Ministry rate. What changes on such a move is the house-rent allowance, which depends on the city.

A Nursing Officer’s monthly pay at Level 7

The Nursing Allowance is the component that separates a nursing payslip from any other Level 7 payslip. Take a Nursing Officer at the entry cell of Level 7 in a city classed X for house-rent purposes. The basic pay is Rs. 44,900. Dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026 adds Rs. 26,940. House-rent allowance at the 30% X-city rate adds Rs. 13,470. Transport allowance adds a further amount with its own dearness component.

On top of those sits the Nursing Allowance of Rs. 9,000, which does not move with the basic, the city or the dearness rate. Against the Rs. 44,900 basic it is close to a fifth of basic pay, and it lands in full every month. A nurse in an ICU or operation theatre adds Rs. 540, and the Dress Allowance of Rs. 2,250 sits alongside.

A plain Level 7 post in the same city on the same basic draws none of those three. The full computed figure for a given level, city and dearness rate can be worked through on the salary by pay level tool, and the Staff Nurse salary page carries the complete breakdown for the entry grade.

Reckonability for pension, gratuity and the NPS contribution

The Nursing Allowance counts for none of the three, and the governing order says so in terms. Condition (a) of the Office Memorandum of 31 August 2017 states that the Nursing Allowance “will not be treated as part of pay”, as already decided by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Order No. Z.28015/86/97-N dated 28 July 1998. That 1998 decision has stood through both the 6th and the 7th Central Pay Commissions.

Rule 31 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 confines emoluments for pension to the 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. No other allowance enters, and rule 32 computes average emoluments over the last ten months on the same basis.

Retirement gratuity adds one item and one only, the dearness allowance admissible on the date of retirement or death. 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 the contribution base to basic pay, non-practising allowance and admissible dearness allowance, so neither the employee’s contribution nor the Government’s is computed on the Nursing Allowance, and the Unified Pension Scheme works on the same base as the National Pension System.

A Nursing Officer who draws the allowance for a 30-year career, at Rs. 9,000 a month for the later part of it, adds nothing to the pension by having drawn it. Every rupee of pension value comes from the basic pay of the level, which is why the level reached on promotion, not the allowance, decides the retirement outcome. The same holds for the Dress Allowance, which condition (iii) of the same order also puts outside pay.

Tax treatment

The Nursing Allowance is fully taxable under both regimes. It is a personal allowance paid for belonging to the nursing cadre rather than an allowance to meet expenses wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred in performing the duties of an office, so it does not reach serial 12 of the Table in Schedule III to the Income-tax Act, 2025, whose prescribed list is at rule 280(1) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, and it appears nowhere in the fifteen-serial table at rule 280(2) that serial 13 prescribes. It is taxed as salary at the employee’s slab rate. The Operation Theatre Allowance is taxable on the same reasoning.

The Dress Allowance is exempt in the old regime and taxable in the new. As an allowance granted to meet the cost of purchasing or maintaining a uniform worn on duty, it falls within rule 280(1)(g), the limb that carried across from the former Rule 2BB(1)(f), and is excluded from total income to the extent it is actually spent on the prescribed uniform.

That exemption does not survive the default regime. Section 202(2)(a)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 removes serials 12 and 13 from the Section 202(1) computation except for the items prescribed for that purpose, and the survivor list at rule 280(3) runs only to rule 280(1)(a) to (d), being travel on tour or transfer, transport of personal effects, daily allowance and conveyance, together with serial 10 of the rule 280(2) table. The uniform limb at rule 280(1)(g) is not among them, so a nurse in the default new regime pays tax on the full Rs. 27,000 a year. For the wider comparison see old versus new tax regime and income tax for central government employees.

Bearing on the 8th Central Pay Commission

No 8th Central Pay Commission position on the Nursing Allowance exists. The Commission was constituted by a Ministry of Finance notification of 3 November 2025, following Cabinet approval of its terms of reference on 28 October 2025, with Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai as chairperson and 18 months from constitution to report.

Whether the 8th Central Pay Commission keeps the flat design, re-rates the allowance, changes the 25% escalator or revisits the exclusion from the patient-care allowances is unknown, and no figure for the position after it reports can be stated. The 7th CPC declined to raise the rate at all and the increase came from the Committee on Allowances afterwards, so the Commission’s own report is not a reliable guide to where the figure ends up this time either.

The position until then is Rs. 9,000 a month for every nurse at every level, Rs. 2,250 a month of Dress Allowance, Rs. 540 a month for the ICU and operation theatre share of the cadre, and the next escalator step falling due when dearness allowance reaches 100%.

Related Articles

• Dress Allowance
• Staff Nurse salary
• Central government jobs
• Risk and Hardship Allowance
• Abolished allowances under the 7th CPC
• Non-Practising Allowance
• Running Allowance
• Dearness allowance
• House-rent allowance
• Transport allowance
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Pay matrix
• Central government pension
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• Gratuity
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Allowances for central government employees
• Income tax for central government employees
• Old versus new tax regime
• Salary by pay level
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• Expected DA calculator

External references

• Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• Report of the Committee on Allowances, 27 April 2017
• Report of the 7th Central Pay Commission
• Indian Nursing Council
• Central Government Health Scheme
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017: Nursing Allowance revised to Rs. 7,200 per month with effect from 1 July 2017 for nursing personnel of all categories at all levels, with the 25% escalator at paragraph 2, the dispensary and hospital clause at paragraph 3, and the exclusion from pay at condition (a) citing Order No. Z.28015/86/97-N dated 28 July 1998.
2. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017 (Dress Allowance): Rs. 1,800 per month for nursing personnel, the annual July credit at condition (ii), and the exclusion from pay at condition (iii).
3. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 17 September 2024: 25% increase in the Nursing Allowance on dearness allowance reaching 50%.
4. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Resolution on the 7th CPC allowances, published in the Gazette of India on 6 July 2017: Nursing Allowance raised from Rs. 4,800 to Rs. 7,200 a month; Operation Theatre Allowance not abolished and raised to Rs. 540 a month; Dress Allowance to nurses on a monthly basis.
5. Report of the Committee on Allowances, 27 April 2017: paragraph 5.5.7 (Nursing Allowance multiplied by 1.5 to Rs. 7,200, Rs. 49 crore a year, about 17,000 personnel), paragraph 5.5.4 (refusal of cells R1H2 and R1H3 for doctors and nurses), and the Dress Allowance recommendation (ii) fixing Rs. 1,800 a month payable monthly.
6. Report of the 7th Central Pay Commission: paragraphs 8.17.83 to 8.17.86 (Nursing Allowance and the subsuming of the uniform, washing and messing allowances), paragraph 8.10.29 (patient care allowances excluding nursing personnel), paragraph 8.10.35 (Operation Theatre Allowance), and paragraph 8.16.14 (Dress Allowance schedule).
7. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19051/1/2017-E.IV dated 2 August 2017: Dress Allowance framework, with the annual July credit at paragraph 4.
8. Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 (dearness allowance 50% from 1 January 2024) and No. 1/1(i)/2026-E.II(B) dated 22 April 2026 (60% from 1 January 2026).
9. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, rule 31 (emoluments) and rule 45 (retirement gratuity); Central Civil Services (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021, rule 5(1), notified by G.S.R. 227(E) dated 30 March 2021.
10. Income-tax Act, 2025, Schedule III Table serials 12 and 13, and Section 202(2)(a)(ii); Income-tax Rules, 2026, rule 280(1)(g) and rule 280(3).