Running Allowance

Running allowance is the mileage-linked component of pay that Indian Railways pays to its running staff, the loco pilots, assistant loco pilots, motormen and guards, over and above the basic pay of their level in the pay matrix. It rewards the distance run and the hours spent on the footplate or in the guard’s van, and it carries a feature no other central government allowance has: a fixed slice of basic pay, 30% for most purposes and 55% for pension, is treated as pay when other benefits are computed. That pay element is the reason a loco pilot’s dearness allowance, house-rent allowance and pension all sit on a base higher than the printed basic pay.

The allowance exists because a running-staff member’s work cannot be measured by attendance at a fixed office. A loco pilot’s output is the train moved from one place to another, and the personal expenditure of running it, meals bought away from home, rest taken at an outstation running room, falls outside the ordinary allowance structure. Indian Railways has paid a distance-based allowance to running staff since long before the pay commissions, and the present shape of it was fixed under the 7th Central Pay Commission framework.

This article sets out what running allowance is, who draws it, how the Kilometreage Allowance and the Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage are computed, and how the 30% and 55% pay element flows into dearness allowance, house-rent allowance, the National Pension System and the final pension. The figures are drawn from Railway Board orders, chiefly RBE No. 85/2019 and the latest revision in RBE No. 25/2026. For the pay of the staff who draw it, see the loco pilot salary page, and for the wider service, railway employees.

Who draws running allowance

Running staff are the crew whose duty is the physical running of a train, and only they draw running allowance. The Railway Board rate tables enumerate the categories precisely. On the loco side they are the Loco Pilots of the Mail or Express, Passenger, Goods and Shunting categories, the Senior and Assistant Loco Pilots, the Senior Motorman and Motorman on electric multiple units, and the legacy Fireman grades that survive in a residual form. On the traffic side they are the Guards, re-designated Train Managers by Railway Board order RBE No. 7/2022 dated 13 January 2022, in the Mail or Express, Senior Passenger and Goods categories, and the Assistant Guards and Brakesmen.

Station masters, controllers, workshop artisans, ministerial staff and the wider railway workforce are not running staff and do not draw running allowance, even where their work supports train operations. The test is the footplate or the van, not proximity to the railway. A loco pilot promoted to a supervisory post that takes them off running duty loses the running allowance, and the pay element with it, which is why the switch from running to a stationary supervisory grade is a considered career decision rather than an automatic step up.

The one category that sits at the boundary is the Loco Inspector, a supervisory grade drawn from experienced loco pilots. Loco Inspectors are no longer running staff for kilometreage purposes, but a separate scheme preserves a pay element of 30% of basic pay for their pensionary benefits, so that a loco pilot who becomes a Loco Inspector does not lose the whole pension advantage of the running years. That scheme dates to Railway Board letter E(P&A)II/83/RS-10(iv) dated 25 November 1992 and is carried forward in the current order.

Kilometreage Allowance and Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage

The core of running allowance is the Kilometreage Allowance, abbreviated KMA. It is quoted as a rupee rate per 100 kilometres of run, and a running-staff member earns it on the distance actually covered on booked running duty. The rate rises with the category of train and the responsibility of the post, so a Loco Pilot (Mail or Express) earns a higher rate per 100 km than a Loco Pilot (Goods), and both earn more than an Assistant Loco Pilot working under them.

Running duty is not always spent running. A loco pilot attends periodical medical examinations, refresher courses and departmental enquiries, gives evidence in courts, and serves out transfer and joining time, all of which are duty but cover no kilometres. For these the railway pays the Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage, abbreviated ALK. When the non-running duty is at the headquarters, ALK is paid at the pay element, that is at 30% of basic pay for the period. When it is at an outstation, ALK is paid as notional kilometreage at the rate of 160 kilometres for each duty day, so the ALK column in the rate table is expressed per 160 km against the KMA column’s per 100 km. The 160-kilometre duty day is the standard notional run, and it fixes the conversion between a day of non-running duty and a distance-based payment.

The distinction matters because a running-staff member’s monthly running allowance is not a fixed figure. It varies with the diagram worked, the mileage booked, and the split between running and non-running duty in the month, which is why two loco pilots of the same grade at the same station can draw different running allowance in the same month.

The 30% and 55% pay element

The feature that sets running allowance apart from every other allowance in the central government is the pay element. Railway Board order RBE No. 85/2019, letter No. E(P&A)II-2013/RS-14 dated 28 May 2019, fixes it in two rates.

For pay-type benefits, a running-staff member’s basic pay is reckoned as basic pay plus 30%. That inflated figure, not the bare basic, is the base on which dearness allowance, house-rent allowance, the composite transfer grant, leave encashment and the National Pension System contribution are worked out. A loco pilot on a Level 6 basic of Rs. 35,400 is therefore treated, for these purposes, as drawing Rs. 35,400 plus 30%, that is Rs. 46,020, so the loco pilot’s dearness allowance and house-rent allowance are larger than those of a non-running Level 6 employee on the same basic pay.

For retirement and pensionary benefits, the pay element is 55% of basic pay instead of 30%. Pension, death-cum-retirement gratuity and the commuted value of pension are all computed on basic pay plus 55%. This is the single largest financial advantage of a running career: a running-staff member retires on a pensionary base more than half again as large as the printed basic pay, so the pension is materially higher than the pay level alone would produce. For a fuller treatment of how the pension itself is worked out, see central government pension and, for the commuted portion, commutation of pension.

The two rates apply to different purposes and do not overlap. The 30% element runs through the working-life benefits, and the 55% element governs the retirement benefits. For Loco Inspectors, only the 30% element survives, and only for pensionary benefits, under the 1992 scheme noted above.

The current kilometreage rates

The 7th Central Pay Commission did not fix the running-staff rates directly. The Ministry of Finance Resolution dated 6 July 2017 on the pay commission’s allowances left the kilometreage and related rates to be settled by the Ministry of Railways in bilateral discussion with the recognised federations, the All India Railwaymen’s Federation and the National Federation of Indian Railwaymen, with the Ministry of Finance’s concurrence. The resulting 7th CPC rates were notified in RBE No. 85/2019 with effect from 1 July 2017, or the date a running-staff member elected to the Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, whichever was later.

The rates settled in 2019, in rupees per 100 km of Kilometreage Allowance, are set out below for the principal grades.

These rates were revised upward with effect from 1 January 2024, when dearness allowance reached 50%, which under the 7th CPC framework triggers a 25% rise in this class of allowance. The revision was notified in Railway Board order RBE No. 25/2026, letter No. E(P&A)II/2013/RS-14 (Part-2) dated 20 March 2026. The revised loco-side rates are set out below, with the Kilometreage Allowance per 100 km and the Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage per 160 km.

The guard categories were revised on the same 1 January 2024 date and the same trigger, and their current rates are set by the same RBE No. 25/2026. A reader who needs an exact guard figure should take it from the notified order, since the guard categories are priced a little below the equivalent loco-pilot grades on the same scale.

How the running allowance builds up in a month

A running-staff member’s monthly running allowance is the sum of the kilometreage earned on running duty and the ALK earned on non-running duty. On a running day the loco pilot books the distance of the diagram worked and earns kilometreage at the grade rate. On a non-running duty day the loco pilot earns ALK, at the pay element if the duty is at headquarters and at the 160-kilometre notional rate if it is at an outstation.

Because the total moves with the diagram, running allowance is variable pay, not a fixed monthly figure. A loco pilot on long-distance mail links in a busy month earns more running allowance than the same loco pilot in a month heavy with rest days, training or medical duty. This variability is the counterpart of the higher earning: running allowance can lift a running-staff member’s monthly earnings well above the bare pay level, but it is not guaranteed month to month in the way dearness allowance or house-rent allowance are.

The pay element, by contrast, is not variable. It is a fixed 30% or 55% of basic pay, so the dearness allowance, house-rent allowance and pension advantages it creates are steady, regardless of how many kilometres the loco pilot runs in a given month.

Running allowance and transport allowance

Running staff are compensated for the running duty itself through the kilometreage allowance, which is designed to meet the personal expenditure a loco pilot or guard incurs while running a train away from home. The ordinary transport allowance, by contrast, meets the cost of commuting between residence and the fixed place of work, and it is governed by its own separate rules under the 7th CPC framework, notified in Railway Board order RBE No. 80/2017. The two allowances answer different needs, the one the running duty and the other the daily commute, so the running-staff member’s running duty is not paid through transport allowance.

Transport allowance in general is not admissible where the employer provides free conveyance, and the running-staff arrangement reflects the same logic that a duty already compensated through a dedicated allowance is not paid for twice. A running-staff member should confirm the current position on transport allowance from the establishment rules applicable to the category, since the treatment turns on the specific duty pattern.

Other running-staff allowances

The kilometreage allowance is the largest element, but the running-staff allowance family is wider. Alongside the Kilometreage Allowance and the Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage, the running rules provide a Trip Allowance, a Breach of Rest Allowance where mandatory rest is cut short, Outstation Detention and Outstation Relieving Allowances for time held away from headquarters, an Officiating Allowance, an Accident Allowance, a Shunting Allowance, a Ghat Allowance for the steep graded sections, a Waiting Duty Allowance, and a Running Room Allowance or an allowance in lieu where running-room facilities are not available. A flat Additional Allowance is paid to certain running grades, and an annual Uniform Allowance covers the prescribed kit.

These minor allowances are governed by the same master rulebook, the Rules for the Payment of Running and Other Allowances to the Running Staff on Indian Railways, and their exact rates are revised from time to time by Railway Board order. Their combined effect is that a running-staff member’s earnings are built from a base pay level, a large variable kilometreage allowance, the fixed pay element flowing into the standard allowances, and this cluster of duty-specific payments.

Tax treatment

The pay element is part of salary and is taxed as such: the dearness allowance, house-rent allowance and other benefits computed on basic plus 30% are taxable in the ordinary way, subject to the exemptions that apply to each, such as the house-rent allowance exemption under Section 10(13A).

The kilometreage allowance itself attracts a specific concession for transport-system employees. Section 10(14) of the Income-tax Act, 1961, read with Rule 2BB of the Income-tax Rules, exempts a part of any allowance granted to an employee of a transport undertaking to meet personal expenditure during duty performed in the course of running such transport, provided the employee is not in receipt of a daily allowance. The exemption is 70% of the allowance, capped at Rs. 10,000 per month. This concession is available only under the old tax regime. The default new regime under Section 115BAC withdrew most Section 10(14) exemptions of this kind, so a running-staff member who stays in or opts for the new regime does not get the 70% exemption on the kilometreage allowance. Which regime leaves a running-staff member better off depends on the mix of running allowance, the pay element and the deductions claimed, and is worth working through both ways. For the wider comparison see old versus new tax regime and income tax for central government employees.

Running allowance and your pension

The 55% pay element is what makes a running career valuable at retirement. Pension for a central government employee under the old pension scheme is broadly half of the last drawn or average emoluments, and for running staff those emoluments are reckoned as basic pay plus 55%, so the pension base is more than one and a half times the printed basic. Death-cum-retirement gratuity and the commuted value of pension are computed on the same enhanced base.

For a running-staff member under the National Pension System or the Unified Pension Scheme, the 30% pay element lifts the salary on which the monthly contribution is calculated, so both the employee’s 10% and the government’s 14% contributions are larger than those of a non-running employee on the same pay level, and the corpus grows faster. The retirement advantage therefore reaches running staff under every pension framework, through the 55% element in the defined-benefit schemes and the 30% element in the contributory ones. For the schemes themselves see national pension system and unified pension scheme.

Related Articles

• Loco Pilot salary
• Railway employees
• Railway Group D salary
• Junior Engineer salary
• Central government jobs
• Dearness allowance
• House-rent allowance
• Transport allowance
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Pay matrix
• Central government pension
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• Commutation of pension
• Gratuity
• Income tax for government employees
• Old versus new tax regime
• Risk and Hardship Allowance
• Nursing Allowance
• Salary by pay level
• 7th CPC salary calculator
• Expected DA calculator

External references

• Indian Railways, Railway Board establishment circulars
• All India Railwaymen’s Federation
• National Federation of Indian Railwaymen
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Railway Board letter No. E(P&A)II-2013/RS-14 dated 28 May 2019 (RBE No. 85/2019): pay element of 30% for pay-type benefits and 55% for pensionary benefits, and the 7th CPC kilometreage and ALK rates effective 1 July 2017.
2. Railway Board letter No. E(P&A)II/2013/RS-14 (Part-2) dated 20 March 2026 (RBE No. 25/2026): revision of Kilometreage Allowance and Allowance in Lieu of Kilometreage with effect from 1 January 2024, on dearness allowance reaching 50%.
3. Ministry of Finance Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017 on the 7th Central Pay Commission allowances, delegating the running-staff rate settlement to the Ministry of Railways.
4. Railway Board letter dated 13 January 2022 (RBE No. 7/2022): re-designation of Guard as Train Manager.
5. Railway Board letter No. E(P&A)II/83/RS-10(iv) dated 25 November 1992 (RBE No. 198/1992): the Loco Inspector pay-element scheme.
6. Income-tax Act, 1961, Section 10(14), read with Rule 2BB of the Income-tax Rules, 1962: exemption for transport-system running-staff allowance, 70% up to Rs. 10,000 per month, under the old regime.