Pay matrix

The pay matrix is the 540-cell table of basic pay that governs every central government civilian employee, recommended by the 7th Central Pay Commission in its report of 19 November 2015 and given legal force as Part A of the Schedule to the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, gazette notification G.S.R. 721(E) dated 25 July 2016, with effect from 1 January 2016.

It replaced the 6th Central Pay Commission’s system of running pay bands with a grade pay attached to each post. Under that system basic pay was the sum of two components; under the matrix it is one printed cell. The table runs from Rs. 18,000, cell 1 of Level 1, to Rs. 2,50,000, the single fixed cell of Level 18 held by the Cabinet Secretary. It carries 18 levels printed across 19 columns, because Level 13A sits between Levels 13 and 14.

Almost every other figure in a central government pay slip is a function of that cell. Dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026, house rent allowance at 30%, 20% or 10% by city class, transport allowance keyed to the level, the 10% National Pension System contribution and the pension itself all read off it. Locating a level and a stage is therefore the first step in working out any central government salary, which is what the 7th CPC salary calculator takes as its inputs, and the salary at each pay level table sets out the resulting gross for all 18 levels.

This article gives the full level and entry-pay table, the rules that build a column and move an employee down it, the distinction between the index of rationalisation and the fitment factor that the matrix is most often misread on, how pay is fixed on appointment, conversion and promotion, how the matrix reaches pensioners and the armed forces, who it does not cover, and what the 8th Central Pay Commission may do to it.

The 18 levels and their entry cells

Level 1 starts at Rs. 18,000 and Level 18 is a fixed Rs. 2,50,000. The table below gives, for each of the 19 printed columns, the 6th CPC grade pay it replaced, cell 1, the number of stages in the column, and the last cell. Figures are basic pay in rupees per month under Part A of the Schedule to the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 (G.S.R. 721(E), 25 July 2016), effective 1 January 2016, with Level 13 as substituted by the CCS (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017 (G.S.R. 592(E), 15 June 2017).

The column lengths taper sharply, and the taper is deliberate. Paragraph 5.1.39 of the 7th CPC report records that the span of the lower levels was set at 40 years so that no stagnation takes place, and that beyond Level 11 the span reduces progressively to four years at Level 16, because the last cell of each level has to stay below the last cell of the level above it while Level 17 is capped at Rs. 2,25,000. Only Levels 17 and 18 are single fixed cells with no increment at all. Level 16 is a genuine column of four cells, Rs. 2,05,400, Rs. 2,11,600, Rs. 2,17,900 and Rs. 2,24,400.

The same paragraph adds a warning worth repeating, because the printed table invites the opposite reading. The Commission wrote that it would be inappropriate, even incorrect, to treat the last figure in a column as the maximum of a traditional pay scale. The matrix was designed as an open-ended progression, not as a set of 19 scales each with a ceiling.

Reading a level and a cell

Basic pay is one cell, located by two facts: the level of the post, and the number of increments earned in it. Nothing is added to that cell.

The first dimension is the level, running across the top as columns numbered 1 to 18, with 13A between 13 and 14. Rule 3(vi) of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 defines the level as the one corresponding to the pay band and grade pay of the post specified in Part A of the Schedule, so the level carries exactly the information the grade pay used to carry: the status of the post. A post described as being in Level 7 or Level 10 is being given its column.

The second dimension is the stage, running down that column. Cell 1 is the entry pay for the level. Each cell below it is 3% higher, one annual increment, so the stage number is a count of years served in the level.

A column is generated mechanically from its entry cell. Level 6 starts at Rs. 35,400. Multiplying by 1.03 gives Rs. 36,462, printed as Rs. 36,500. Rs. 36,500 multiplied by 1.03 gives Rs. 37,595, printed as Rs. 37,600, then Rs. 38,700, Rs. 39,900 and Rs. 41,100. Because the same operation generates every cell, the whole matrix was printed once in the Schedule and is read off thereafter rather than recomputed for each employee. That is the design goal the 7th CPC was after: under pay bands an employee had to combine a band figure with a grade pay and work through the fixation rules to know their own pay.

The 3% increment and the rounding convention

The increment is granted by cell movement, and the rate of 3% is not in the Rules. Rule 9 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, headed “Increments in Pay Matrix”, provides that the increment is as specified in the vertical cells of the applicable level, and illustrates it with Rs. 32,300 in Level 4 moving to Rs. 33,300. The Rules never state the rate as a percentage anywhere. The rate is stated in the 7th CPC report at paragraph 5.1.38: “The rate of annual increment is being retained at 3 percent.” Paragraph 5.1.21 describes the vertical dimension as the steps of annual financial progression of three percent within each level.

Cells round to the nearest Rs. 100, not up to the next Rs. 100. This is the single most repeated error about the matrix, and four of the 19 entry cells disprove it on their own: Level 3 computes to Rs. 21,742 and prints as Rs. 21,700, Level 7 to Rs. 44,907 and prints as Rs. 44,900, Level 9 to Rs. 53,134 and prints as Rs. 53,100, and Level 15 to Rs. 1,82,240 and prints as Rs. 1,82,200. The same holds inside a column: Rs. 37,600 multiplied by 1.03 is Rs. 38,728, printed as Rs. 38,700. Checked across all 521 cell-to-cell transitions in the printed matrix, every one rounds to the nearest hundred.

One consequence is that the increment is not exactly 3%. Rounding down shortens a step: Level 6 moves from Rs. 50,500 to Rs. 52,000, a rise of 2.97%. Rounding up lengthens one. The 3% is the rule that generated the table, and the table is the entitlement.

The rounding convention itself is not prescribed anywhere. It is not in the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 and not in Chapter 5.1 of the 7th CPC report. The only rounding instruction in the scheme is in Rule 7(1)(A)(i), which rounds the fitment product to the nearest rupee and has nothing to do with building the matrix. The nearest-hundred convention is observable in the printed Schedule and is inferred from it.

Index of rationalisation and the fitment factor

These are two different multipliers doing two different jobs, and confusing them is the most consequential mistake a reader can make about the matrix. The index of rationalisation built the table. The fitment factor of 2.57 moved an individual into it.

The index was applied once, to each grade’s 6th CPC entry pay, to generate cell 1 of the corresponding level. It rises with seniority. Table 5 of the 7th CPC report prints the index for all 19 columns.

Source: 7th CPC report, paragraph 5.1.19 with Table 4 and paragraph 5.1.25 with Table 5. The Commission explained the two departures at paragraph 5.1.20. At grade pay 8700 it found a disproportionate increase in entry pay and moderated the proposed increase, which is why Level 13 alone among the PB-4 grades was originally built on 2.57. At grade pay 10000, which it described as representing the Senior Administrative Grade carrying a significantly higher degree of responsibility and accountability, the entry pay along with that of HAG and HAG+ was enhanced by a multiple of 2.72.

The derivation is arithmetic. Level 6 replaces grade pay Rs. 4,200 in PB-2, whose 6th CPC entry pay was Rs. 13,500, being the pay band minimum of Rs. 9,300 plus the grade pay. Rs. 13,500 multiplied by 2.62 is Rs. 35,370, printed as Rs. 35,400. Had the flat 2.57 been used, Level 6 would have started at Rs. 34,700.

The fitment factor works on a person, not on a grade. Rule 7(1)(A)(i) multiplied an existing employee’s own basic pay, band pay plus grade pay, by 2.57, rounded to the nearest rupee, and located the result in the level. No employee has ever been multiplied by 2.62, 2.67, 2.72, 2.78 or 2.81. The higher index is already inside the entry cell and is not applied a second time. The Department of Expenditure had to say so in terms after the 2017 amendment to Level 13, warning that pay fixed by using 2.67 as a multiplier was contrary to the Rules and liable to recovery.

What the matrix replaced

The 6th CPC placed every post in one of four running pay bands with a grade pay attached, so basic pay was a sum of two components and the grade pay did the work of distinguishing a section officer from an under secretary who sat in the same band. Two employees could draw the same band pay and different grade pay, and the interaction between the two components could make a promotion worth less than an annual increment.

The compression is a long trend, not a single reform. Before the 6th CPC, central government pay ran on a large number of distinct pay scales, each with its own minimum, maximum and increment, which made comparison across departments difficult and fixation on promotion complicated. The 6th CPC collapsed those into four bands with a grade pay, a first attempt at a common spine. The 7th CPC finished the job by removing the split, so every post in the civil service now sits somewhere on one 19-column grid and can be ranked against any other by inspection. The cost of a single grid is the taper: it has to accommodate the whole service from the entry grades to the Cabinet Secretary, so the levels are long and closely spaced at the bottom and collapse into single cells at the top.

Level 13A, and the 2017 substitution of Level 13

Level 13A was in the matrix from the outset, and Level 13 is the column that was changed in 2017. The two are routinely swapped, including in commentary that is otherwise reliable.

Level 13A is printed as its own column in Table 5 of the 7th CPC report submitted on 19 November 2015, replacing grade pay Rs. 8,900 in PB-4, built by applying the index of 2.67 to the 6th CPC entry pay of Rs. 49,100 to give Rs. 1,31,100 over 18 stages, and it carried into Part A of the Schedule unchanged on 25 July 2016. No amendment created it. The belief that it appeared in 2017 is imported from the defence matrix, where the government did modify the Commission’s recommendation for Level 13A, the Brigadier level, in its Resolution of 25 July 2016.

Level 13, the Director level replacing grade pay Rs. 8,700, is what actually changed. As notified on 25 July 2016 it started at Rs. 1,18,500 and ran 21 stages to Rs. 2,14,100, built on the moderated index of 2.57. Ministry of Finance Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 16 May 2017 raised that index to 2.67, and the CCS (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017, gazette notification G.S.R. 592(E) dated 15 June 2017, substituted the column: entry cell Rs. 1,23,100, 20 stages, last cell Rs. 2,15,900, with effect from 1 January 2016. The original Level 13 ceased to exist from the beginning, and the matrix went from 541 cells to 540.

Two practical consequences followed, both of which reached individual pay slips. Fixation had to be redone for everyone in Level 13, and the Department of Expenditure clarified by OM dated 28 September 2017 that the multiplier for fixation remained 2.57, the revised index of 2.67 having been used only to build the new entry cell. Where the wrong multiplier had already been applied, recovery was ordered, and waived for payments up to 31 July 2017.

The two grade pay 5400 columns

Level 9 and Level 10 both replace grade pay Rs. 5,400, and the Rs. 3,000 gap between them comes from the index, not from the posts.

The 6th CPC placed grade pay Rs. 5,400 in two pay bands. In PB-2 (Rs. 9,300 to Rs. 34,800) it was characteristically a non-functional or time-bound upgradation grade rather than a recruitment grade, and the 6th CPC prescribed no direct-recruit entry pay for it at all. The 7th CPC interpolated one, Rs. 20,280, from the fitment table issued after the 6th CPC, and applied the PB-2 index of 2.62 to give Level 9 at Rs. 53,100. In PB-3 (Rs. 15,600 to Rs. 39,100) grade pay Rs. 5,400 is the Group A junior time scale, the direct-recruit entry grade for the All India Services and the organised Group A services, with a real 6th CPC entry pay of Rs. 21,000 and the PB-3 index of 2.67, giving Level 10 at Rs. 56,100.

So the same nominal grade pay produces two entry cells Rs. 3,000 apart, and the interpolated Rs. 20,280 behind Level 9 is a figure no 6th CPC order ever prescribed.

Which posts sit at which level

The mapping is by grade pay, so it is exact rather than approximate, though the designations vary by cadre and ministry.

At the entry end, Level 1 is the multi-tasking staff grade. Level 2 is the grade formerly designated Lower Division Clerk, redesignated Junior Secretariat Assistant by the Department of Personnel and Training order of 21 December 2015, which also redesignated the Upper Division Clerk as Senior Secretariat Assistant and the Assistant as Assistant Section Officer. Level 4, grade pay Rs. 2,400, is the Senior Secretariat Assistant and Stenographer Grade D. Level 6, grade pay Rs. 4,200, covers the sub-inspector band and assistant supervisory grades across departments; Inspector grades in the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs and the Central Board of Direct Taxes carry grade pay Rs. 4,600 and therefore sit at Level 7. Level 7 is also the Assistant Section Officer grade in the Central Secretariat Service, and Level 8, grade pay Rs. 4,800, is Section Officer.

Level 10 is the pivot of the Group A structure, the direct-recruit entry level, so an Indian Administrative Service or Indian Police Service officer begins at the Level 10 entry cell of Rs. 56,100. The central secretariat hierarchy then runs Under Secretary at Level 11 (grade pay 6600), Deputy Secretary at Level 12 (7600), Director at Level 13 (8700), Joint Secretary at Level 14 (10000), Additional Secretary at Level 15 (HAG), Special Secretary at Level 16 (HAG+), Secretary to the Government of India at Level 17 (Apex, fixed Rs. 2,25,000), and the Cabinet Secretary alone at Level 18. Progression at the top is by selection rather than by increment, which is why those columns are four cells long or one.

Fixation on appointment, conversion and promotion

Three rules of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 cover the three ways an employee arrives at a cell.

On first appointment, Rule 8. A person recruited directly on or after 1 January 2016 is fixed at the first cell of the level of the post: Rs. 44,900 for a Level 7 recruit, Rs. 18,000 for a Level 1 recruit. Paragraph 5.1.34 of the 7th CPC report puts it the same way, that a direct recruit to Level 4 will be fixed at the start of the level, at Rs. 25,500.

On conversion of pre-2016 pay, Rule 7(1)(A)(i). Existing basic pay, meaning pay in the band plus grade pay, is multiplied by the fitment factor of 2.57 and rounded to the nearest rupee, and the result is located in the applicable level. If it matches a cell exactly, that cell is the revised pay; if not, the employee gets the immediate next higher cell. The illustration in the Rules takes an employee in PB-1 with grade pay Rs. 2,400 drawing band pay of Rs. 10,160, so basic pay of Rs. 12,560, multiplied by 2.57 to Rs. 32,279, fixed in Level 4 at Rs. 32,300. Rule 7(1)(A)(ii) puts a floor under it: where the computed figure falls below the first cell of the level, pay is fixed at that first cell. That floor is how the 6th CPC entry basic of Rs. 7,000, which computes to Rs. 17,990, became the Rs. 18,000 minimum pay of Level 1.

On promotion, Rule 13(i). One increment is granted in the level from which the employee is promoted, and the employee is then placed in the higher level at the cell equal to that figure, or at the next higher cell where none is equal. The Rules illustrate it with Rs. 28,700 in Level 4 going to Rs. 29,600 after the increment and being fixed in Level 5 at Rs. 30,100. Paragraph 5.1.35 of the report gives the larger jump: Rs. 40,400 in Level 5 becomes Rs. 41,600 after the increment and is fixed at Rs. 44,900 in Level 7. This method guarantees a promotion is worth at least one increment, which is the 6th CPC anomaly it was written to close. Rule 13(ii) caps basic pay plus non-practising allowance at the average of the Apex level pay and the Cabinet Secretary’s pay. Rule 13 has never been amended, and the detail sits in pay fixation on promotion.

Bunching

Bunching is the compensation for pay compression on conversion: where the 2.57 conversion landed employees who had been on different 6th CPC stages in the same matrix cell, an additional increment was due.

The recommendation is paragraph 5.1.36 of the 7th CPC report, which provides that where more than two stages are bunched together, one additional increment equal to 3% may be given for every two stages bunched, with pay fixed in the subsequent cell of the matrix. The operative orders are all Department of Expenditure Implementation Cell OM No. 1-6/2016-IC: the OM of 7 September 2016 first gave effect to it and introduced the 3% test for what counts as a consecutive stage, the OM of 13 June 2017 withheld fixation pending a uniform procedure, and the OM of 3 August 2017 is the operative order.

The 3 August 2017 OM narrowed the benefit, and that narrowing is what most disputes turn on. Its paragraphs 7 and 8(iv) provide that the benefit cannot be extended with reference to pay stages lower than the entry pay indicated for the level, and that all 6th CPC stages below that entry pay are not reckoned when counting bunching, on the reasoning that counting them would perpetuate the differential entry pay the 7th CPC had set out to remove. Cases already settled on the earlier practice were directed to be reviewed and re-fixed. A further clarification of 7 February 2019, OM No. 1-6/2016-IC/E-IIIA, records that the 7th CPC bunching principle is independent of the 6th CPC one. The 3 August 2017 order has not been withdrawn. The worked cases are in bunching of pay.

Increment dates under Rule 10

There are two increment dates, 1 January and 1 July, and an employee draws one increment on one of them. Rule 10(1) of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 created them in place of the single 1 July date the 6th CPC used, and Rule 10(2) decides which applies: appointment, promotion or financial upgradation including under the MACP scheme falling between 2 January and 1 July carries the increment on the following 1 January, and between 2 July and 1 January it falls on the following 1 July. The underlying condition is six months at the stage on the increment date.

The changeover itself is covered by a proviso to Rule 10(2): where pay was fixed in the revised structure as on 1 January 2016, the next increment accrued on 1 July 2016 and the one after on 1 July 2017. That first increment came after six months, not twelve. Rule 10(3) provides for stepping up where two pre-revised grades merge into one level and a junior ends up drawing more than a senior.

The two-date system also settled a long-running grievance about employees retiring on the day before an increment. In Director (Admn. and HR) KPTCL v. C.P. Mundinamani, Civil Appeal No. 2471 of 2023, decided on 11 April 2023, the Supreme Court held that an employee who had rendered the full year of service qualifying for the increment was entitled to it notwithstanding retirement on the last day of that period; the review was dismissed on 18 December 2024 and final implementation directions issued on 20 February 2025. The Department of Personnel and Training gave effect by OM No. 19/116/2024-Pers.Pol.(Pay) dated 14 October 2024 and the operative OM of even number dated 20 May 2025: an employee retiring on 30 June or 31 December gets a notional increment on the following 1 July or 1 January, reckoned only for computing pension, not for gratuity, commutation or any other pensionary benefit, and payable on and after 1 May 2023 with no arrears for the earlier period. The rules on which date applies to whom are set out at date of next increment.

The top of a level, and the absence of a stagnation increment

Reaching the last cell of a level stops the annual increment, and the 7th CPC provided no stagnation increment to replace it. Further progression comes only from a promotion or from an upgradation under the Modified Assured Career Progression scheme.

This is a design choice rather than a gap. Paragraph 5.1.6 of the report records that the 6th CPC’s running pay bands were themselves introduced to address the stagnation faced under the older discrete scales, where limited spans left employees stuck at a scale maximum. Paragraph 5.1.39 then explains that the 40-stage spans of the lower levels were kept in the spirit of open-ended scales, to ensure that no stagnation takes place: an employee entering Level 1 at age 25 would need 40 years in the same level to exhaust it. Paragraph 5.1.24 adds that an employee with no promotional prospects at all still traverses at least three levels over a 30-year career through MACP alone.

The compression is real only at the top, where the spans are short by construction: eight stages at Level 15, four at Level 16, and none at Levels 17 and 18, which are single fixed cells. An officer appointed to the Apex Scale draws Rs. 2,25,000 for the rest of their service. The question of whether a stagnation increment should be restored is a standing staff-side demand rather than a current entitlement.

MACP upgradation

The Modified Assured Career Progression scheme moves an employee to the next level of the matrix without a change of post, and it uses the same Rule 13 fixation method as a promotion.

The consolidated order is Department of Personnel and Training OM No. 35034/3/2015-Estt.(D) dated 22 October 2019, issued on the basis of paragraph 5.1.44 of the 7th CPC report. It grants three financial upgradations, on completion of 10, 20 and 30 years of regular service or on 10 years of continuous service in the same level, whichever is earlier. The upgradation is placement in the immediate next higher level of the pay matrix in Part A of the Schedule to the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, which means that where the promotional hierarchy skips a level, the MACP level can be lower than the level a regular promotion would have given.

Four limits are worth stating alongside it. Organised Group A Services are excluded from the scheme. An upgradation carries the higher pay but no change of designation, classification or status, and none of the duties of the higher post. No stepping up is admissible where a junior comes to draw more than a senior because of MACP fixation. And a deferred upgradation, where an employee is not found fit at the due date, defers the later ones equally.

Allowances computed on the cell

The matrix sets basic pay, and the major allowances are percentages or level-keyed figures computed on it, so the cell drives the whole salary rather than one line of it.

Dearness allowance is a percentage of basic pay, 60% with effect from 1 January 2026, so it moves with every increment. House rent allowance is 30%, 20% or 10% of basic pay by city classification, those rates having applied since dearness allowance crossed 50% on 1 January 2024 under the pre-authorised escalation in Department of Expenditure OM No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 7 July 2017. Transport allowance is a fixed monthly figure keyed to the level rather than to the cell, higher for Level 9 and above, with dearness allowance paid on top of it.

The practical consequence is that an increment of Rs. 1,300 in Level 7 is not worth Rs. 1,300. At 60% dearness allowance and 30% house rent allowance it is worth Rs. 1,300 multiplied by 1.90, or Rs. 2,470 a month gross, before income tax and before the effect on take-home pay.

Pension contributions read off the cell

Retirement contributions are percentages of basic pay drawn from the matrix plus dearness allowance, so the cell determines the corpus as well as the salary.

Under the National Pension System, the employee contributes 10% of basic pay plus dearness allowance and the government contributes 14%, the government share having risen from 10% with effect from 1 April 2019. Under the Unified Pension Scheme, an option within the National Pension System notified by the Department of Financial Services on 24 January 2025 and effective from 1 April 2025, the employee contributes the same 10% and the government contributes 18.5%, of which 10% is matched into the individual corpus and 8.5% goes to a separate pooled fund supporting the assured payout. The option window closed on 30 September 2025. Employees still covered by the Old Pension Scheme make no such contribution, their pension being 50% of last-drawn pay, again a matrix cell.

Pensioners: notional fixation and the concordance tables

The matrix reaches pre-2016 pensioners through two formulations, with the pensioner given whichever produces the higher figure. Both sit under Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare file F. No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A).

The first is the arithmetic route, in the OM dated 4 August 2016: the pension as already fixed before 1 January 2016 multiplied by 2.57. The second is notional pay fixation, in the OM dated 12 May 2017: the pay drawn at retirement is fixed notionally in the 7th CPC matrix at the level corresponding to the scale, or pay band and grade pay, in which the person retired or died, stepping it forward through each intervening pay commission under the rules in force at the time. Revised pension is then 50% of that notional pay as on 1 January 2016, and revised family pension 30%, or 50% where the enhanced rate is admissible, rounded to the next higher rupee.

The mapping is what makes the second route administrable. The OM dated 6 July 2017 issued Concordance Tables No. 1 to 58, built from Department of Expenditure fitment tables across the 4th to 5th, 5th to 6th and 6th to 7th CPC transitions, with an express safeguard that where a table is inconsistent with the rules, the rules prevail. Tables 51 and 52 were substituted by a corrigendum of 13 September 2017 and Table 29 by one of 18 June 2020. Retirees from before 1986 read the tables on the notional pay as on 1 January 1986. The wider scheme is in central government pension.

The defence pay matrix

The armed forces run a parallel matrix built on the same principles, with three extra columns and an element the civil matrix has no counterpart for.

The defence pay matrix is prescribed by the Army Officers Pay Rules, 2017, the Air Force Officers Pay Rules, 2017 and the Navy Officers Pay Regulations, 2017, notified by S.R.O. 12(E) dated 3 May 2017 with effect from 1 January 2016 and amended by S.R.O. 17(E) dated 6 July 2017. It carries additional columns 5A, 10B and 12A and a differently tenanted 13A, reflecting the rank structure rather than the civil hierarchy. Military service pay is then added to the matrix cell as a distinct element, and it counts for dearness allowance: Rs. 15,500 a month for commissioned officers, Rs. 10,800 for Military Nursing Service officers, Rs. 5,200 for junior commissioned officers and other ranks, and Rs. 6,200 for non-combatants (enrolled) of the Air Force, as reproduced from the Rules. Personnel of the central armed police forces are 7th CPC civilians and draw no military service pay.

The defence matrix was modified by the government twice, more than the civil one. The Resolution of 25 July 2016 raised the index of rationalisation for defence Level 13A, the Brigadier level, from 2.57 to 2.67 and added three stages each at Levels 12A and 13 and two at 13A. Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 16 May 2017 then extended the defence matrix from 24 stages to 40 and raised the index for Level 12A (Lieutenant Colonel) and Level 13 (Colonel) from 2.57 to 2.67, moving their entry cells from Rs. 1,16,700 to Rs. 1,21,200 and from Rs. 1,25,700 to Rs. 1,30,600.

Coverage: who the matrix reaches

Rule 2 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 applies the matrix to persons appointed to civil services and posts under the Union whose pay is debitable to Civil Estimates, and excludes four groups by name: Railways employees and civilians paid from Defence Services Estimates, who are covered by separate rules made by those ministries; Group A, B and C posts under the Administrator of the Union Territory of Chandigarh; and persons locally recruited for service in Indian missions abroad.

Beyond that boundary the matrix reaches by decision, not by operation of law.

Autonomous and statutory bodies. Department of Expenditure OM F. No. 1/1/2016-E.III(A) dated 13 January 2017 allows the Part A pay matrix and the pay-fixation principles of the Rules to be extended to quasi-government organisations, autonomous organisations and statutory bodies set up and funded or controlled by the central government whose emolument structure is identical to the government’s, subject to the body being financially self-sufficient and to its administrative ministry moving a proposal through Integrated Finance. Part B and Part C scales need separate examination. Extension is therefore a decision on each body, and an employee of an autonomous body cannot assume it.

Central public sector enterprises. Not covered. CPSE pay is revised on the Department of Public Enterprises pay-revision cycle, on industrial dearness allowance linked scales that have no relation to the matrix.

State governments. Not covered. Each state legislates its own revision, and many have adopted a matrix of the same pattern by their own order, on their own dates and with their own multipliers.

Constitutional and statutory office-holders. Judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts are outside the matrix entirely, their salaries being fixed by the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1958 and the High Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act, 1954.

There is no level below 1 and none above 18. Level 1 is the floor, the 6th CPC having already abolished the Group D scales beneath it, and Level 18 is the ceiling. The Rules provide no mechanism to create a level, only Parts B and C of the Schedule for upgrading a post into an existing level.

Known anomalies

Four defects in the matrix have generated sustained dispute, and none of them is settled by the printed table.

The Level 13 depression is the largest. Building the Director level on 2.57 while the levels immediately below it used 2.67 compressed the step into Level 13, which is what the 16 May 2017 Resolution and G.S.R. 592(E) corrected, and the correction itself produced re-fixation, wrong multipliers, recoveries and waivers running into 2017.

The bunching restriction in paragraph 8(iv) of the OM of 3 August 2017, disregarding 6th CPC stages below the entry pay of a level when counting bunched stages, is a live staff-side demand for review.

The interpolated Level 9 entry pay of Rs. 20,280 rests on a fitment table rather than on any 6th CPC order prescribing an entry pay for grade pay 5400 in PB-2, because none was ever prescribed.

The graded index itself was contested. The staff side argued before the National Anomaly Committee that varying the index by level disturbs vertical relativity between grades, and proposed applying 2.81 uniformly, which would have set minimum pay near Rs. 19,670. The government rejected it.

One widely repeated claim about the matrix does not survive checking. The Level 6 to Level 7 step of Rs. 9,500, from Rs. 35,400 to Rs. 44,900, is often described as the largest jump in the matrix. It is 26.84%, and it is the largest step below Level 12, but the largest discontinuity in the structure is Level 12 to Level 13: Rs. 78,800 to Rs. 1,23,100, a rise of 56.22% and Rs. 44,300. Nor is the Level 6 to 7 step caused by the index changing, since Levels 6, 7, 8 and 9 all carry 2.62. It is inherited straight from the 6th CPC entry pays of Rs. 13,500 and Rs. 17,140 for grade pay 4200 and 4600, both multiplied by the same number. The index actually changes at five boundaries: 5 to 6, 9 to 10, 13A to 14, 16 to 17, and 17 to 18, where it falls from 2.81 to 2.78.

Worked examples

A Level 7 employee at the entry cell, in a metro city. Basic pay is the Level 7 cell 1 figure of Rs. 44,900. Dearness allowance at 60% from 1 January 2026 is Rs. 26,940. House rent allowance at 30% for an X-class city is Rs. 13,470. Those three come to Rs. 85,310 a month before transport allowance and before deductions. The National Pension System contribution of 10% of basic pay plus dearness allowance is Rs. 7,184.

The same employee after one increment. The next cell of Level 7 is Rs. 46,200, a rise of Rs. 1,300, or 2.90% rather than a flat 3% because the computed Rs. 46,247 rounded down. Dearness allowance becomes Rs. 27,720 and house rent allowance Rs. 13,860, so the gross of those three rises to Rs. 87,780, an increase of Rs. 2,470 for an increment of Rs. 1,300.

A conversion from the 6th CPC. An employee in PB-1 with grade pay Rs. 2,400 drawing band pay of Rs. 10,160 had basic pay of Rs. 12,560 on 31 December 2015. Multiplied by 2.57 under Rule 7(1)(A)(i) that is Rs. 32,279, which is not a printed cell, so the employee was fixed at the next higher cell of Level 4, Rs. 32,300. This is the illustration carried in the Rules themselves.

A promotion from Level 5 to Level 7. An employee drawing Rs. 40,400 in Level 5 first gets one increment in Level 5, taking the figure to Rs. 41,600. Level 7 has no cell at Rs. 41,600 and its lowest cell is Rs. 44,900, so the employee is fixed there. The promotion is worth Rs. 4,500 a month in basic pay, and about Rs. 8,550 gross at 60% dearness allowance and 30% house rent allowance. The report gives this case at paragraph 5.1.35.

To build a full figure for a chosen level, stage and city, including transport allowance and deductions, use the 7th CPC salary calculator.

Bearing on the 8th Central Pay Commission

The 7th CPC matrix remains the operative pay structure, and no 8th CPC figure exists. The 8th Central Pay Commission was constituted by Ministry of Finance Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025 under Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, with 18 months to report, a period that ends on 3 May 2027. Until it reports and revised rules are notified, the table above is the entitlement.

One point about its mandate is often missed. Answering Rajya Sabha unstarred question 1036 on 28 July 2026, the government stated that the terms of reference do not require the Commission to update the pay matrix as such. That is not a statement that the matrix will survive unchanged, but it does mean a new matrix is not a term of the reference the way the minimum pay and the fitment formula are.

The routes open to the Commission are possibilities, not decisions, and the 8th CPC fitment factor is the one that would touch every cell. It could apply a new factor to the whole table, which is the standard method by which one commission generates a matrix from its predecessor’s. It could merge adjacent levels, a long-standing staff-side demand aimed at Levels 1 and 2 and at 5 and 6. It could widen or narrow the ratio between Level 1 and Level 18. Or it could move away from a fixed printed table toward an index-linked grid revising automatically, which is close to the permanent pay-review mechanism the 7th CPC itself recommended. Under any of them, the method of reading the matrix, locating a level and then a stage, carries over.

Related Articles

• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• Central Pay Commission
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Index of rationalisation
• Fitment factor
• 8th CPC fitment factor
• Minimum pay
• Grade pay
• Pay band
• Annual increment
• Date of next increment
• Stagnation increment
• Bunching of pay
• Pay fixation
• Pay fixation on promotion
• Notional pay fixation
• Modified Assured Career Progression
• Concordance table
• National Anomaly Committee
• Aykroyd formula
• Central government employees in India
• Central Secretariat Service
• Assistant Section Officer salary
• Section Officer salary
• Under Secretary salary
• Cabinet Secretary pay
• IAS salary
• IPS salary
• Multi-tasking staff salary
• Stenographer salary
• Sub-inspector salary
• Defence pay matrix
• Military service pay
• Central armed police forces
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• City classification for HRA
• Transport allowance
• Non-practising allowance
• Central government pension
• Old Pension Scheme
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Commutation of pension
• Take-home salary of central government employees
• Income tax for government employees
• Department of Expenditure
• Department of Personnel and Training
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• DA arrears calculator
• HRA calculator

External references

• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (full text)
• Department of Expenditure, orders and circulars
• The Gazette of India
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Central Secretariat Service Division, DoPT
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• Central Pension Accounting Office

References

1. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, gazette notification G.S.R. 721(E), Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, dated 25 July 2016, in force from 1 January 2016: Rule 2 (application), Rule 3(vi) (pay matrix and level), Rule 7 (fixation in the revised pay structure), Rule 8 (direct recruits appointed on or after 1 January 2016), Rule 9 (increments in the pay matrix), Rule 10 (date of next increment), Rule 13 (fixation on promotion), and Part A of the Schedule.
2. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, submitted 19 November 2015, Chapter 5.1: paragraph 5.1.19 with Table 4 (index of rationalisation applied to each grade’s entry pay), paragraph 5.1.20 (moderation at grade pay 8700 and the 2.72 multiple for grade pay 10000, HAG and HAG+), paragraph 5.1.25 with Table 5 (the pay matrix), paragraph 5.1.36 (bunching), paragraph 5.1.38 (annual increment retained at 3%), and paragraph 5.1.39 (span of each level).
3. Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) (Amendment) Rules, 2017, gazette notification G.S.R. 592(E), Department of Expenditure, dated 15 June 2017, substituting Level 13 of the pay matrix with effect from 1 January 2016 (entry cell Rs. 1,23,100 over 20 stages, in place of Rs. 1,18,500 over 21 stages).
4. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution No. 1-2/2016-IC dated 16 May 2017, raising the index of rationalisation of Level 13 of the civil pay matrix from 2.57 to 2.67, and of Levels 12A and 13 of the defence pay matrix, which was also extended from 24 stages to 40.
5. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Implementation Cell, Office Memorandum No. 1-6/2016-IC dated 3 August 2017 on the bunching benefit (paragraphs 7 and 8(iv), the entry-pay floor), read with the Office Memoranda of even number dated 7 September 2016 and 13 June 2017, and the clarification of 7 February 2019.
6. Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 35034/3/2015-Estt.(D) dated 22 October 2019, consolidated guidelines on the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme for central government civilian employees.
7. Department of Personnel and Training, Office Memorandum No. 19/116/2024-Pers.Pol.(Pay) dated 20 May 2025, read with the Office Memorandum of even number dated 14 October 2024, granting a notional increment for the purpose of pension to employees retiring on 30 June or 31 December, in pursuance of the Supreme Court’s judgment of 11 April 2023 in Civil Appeal No. 2471 of 2023, Director (Admn. and HR) KPTCL v. C.P. Mundinamani, and its implementation directions of 20 February 2025.
8. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum F. No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A) dated 12 May 2017 (notional pay fixation in the pay matrix, revised pension at 50% of notional pay as on 1 January 2016), read with the Office Memoranda of even number dated 4 August 2016 (the 2.57 route) and 6 July 2017 (Concordance Tables No. 1 to 58).
9. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum F. No. 1/1/2016-E.III(A) dated 13 January 2017, on extending the Part A pay matrix and the pay-fixation principles of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 to autonomous and statutory bodies funded or controlled by the central government.
10. Army Officers Pay Rules, 2017, Air Force Officers Pay Rules, 2017 and Navy Officers Pay Regulations, 2017, notified by S.R.O. 12(E) dated 3 May 2017 with effect from 1 January 2016, as amended by S.R.O. 17(E) dated 6 July 2017.
11. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, constituting the 8th Central Pay Commission.