Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance

The Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance (SCRLA) is a flat monthly allowance paid to a central government employee posted in a place that the Department of Expenditure lists as a remote locality, graded into Parts A, B, C and D. Its 6th CPC rates were set by DoE OM No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008. From 1 July 2017, DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 pays it as the Tough Location Allowance, tier I, II or III by Part, at rates drawn from the Risk and Hardship Allowance matrix.

The 2017 order kept the Part A to D structure of the 2008 list in its Annexures I to IV and changed the money. Each Part now maps to a tier: Parts A and B to Tough Location Allowance-I, Part C to Tough Location Allowance-II, Part D to Tough Location Allowance-III. A Level 6 employee in a Part B place such as Nagaland drew Rs. 2,400 a month in June 2017 and draws Rs. 5,125 from 1 January 2024.

The allowance still exists under its own name in two places. Paragraph 8 of the 2017 OM lets an employee who also qualifies for Special Duty Allowance keep it at the old 6th CPC rate alongside Special Duty Allowance at 10% of basic pay, and that option pays more than Tough Location Allowance for every officer at Level 9 and above. The income-tax exemption table in rule 280(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026 also names it.

Definition and purpose

The Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance compensates for the cost and isolation of serving in a listed remote place, and it attaches to the place of posting. Paragraph 8.10.62 of the 7th Central Pay Commission report groups it with three other allowances that are “based on geographical location and are meant to compensate for hardship faced by employees posted at such places”.

Two features follow from that. Every employee posted at a listed place draws it, whatever the post, from Level 1 to Level 18. And the amount depends on only two inputs: the Part of the place and the pay band of the employee. The pay band was grade pay under the 6th CPC (Rs. 5,400 and above, or below) and is the pay matrix level now (Level 9 and above, or Level 8 and below).

It is a hardship-of-place payment, which is why the 7th CPC put it in the low-risk row of its matrix, cells R3H1 (high hardship) to R3H3 (low hardship), apart from the higher-risk rows that hold the field area allowance and the counter-insurgency operations allowance.

The 6th CPC scheme under the 2008 OM

Under the 6th Central Pay Commission, DoE OM No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008 revised the remote locality rates from 1 September 2008, in partial modification of the earlier DoE OM No. 3/1/98-E.II(B) dated 20 July 1998. Paragraph 3 kept the existing classification of places into Parts A to D, so the 2008 order revised the rates and left the list in place.

The 2008 OM carried two further rules. Paragraph 6 raised the rates by 25% “automatically” each time dearness allowance on the revised pay structure rose by 50%, and paragraph 8.10.49 of the 7th CPC report lists rates of exactly 1.5 times the 2008 figures, consistent with two such steps by 2016. Paragraph 5 let an employee at a place where another special compensatory allowance was also admissible choose the one that benefited them most.

The higher rate went to grade pay Rs. 5,400 and above, which under the 7th CPC maps to Level 9 and above. The grade pay boundary and the level boundary coincide, and an employee on the higher remote locality rate in June 2017 moved to the higher Tough Location rate in July 2017.

The 7th CPC decision to subsume it

The 7th CPC recommended that the remote locality allowance be merged with three other place-based allowances into one Tough Location Allowance, and the Government accepted that in its Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017. The four allowances were the remote locality allowance, the Bad Climate Allowance, the Special Compensatory Scheduled/Tribal Area Allowance (now the Tribal Area Allowance) and the Sunderban Allowance. The report’s summary table of allowances records each as “Abolished as a separate allowance”, which is its term for an allowance subsumed into another.

The Commission built the new rates from the remote locality rates themselves. Paragraphs 8.10.74 to 8.10.76 apply a factor of 1.5, the multiplier used across the whole risk and hardship matrix:

Paragraph 8.10.74 describes the first tier as “derived by taking the average of SCRLA-Part A and Part B and then applying the factor of 1.5”. The averaging is what decided who gained. At the lower rate, a Part B employee went from Rs. 2,400 to Rs. 4,100, a rise of 70.8%, while a Part A employee went from Rs. 3,000 to the same Rs. 4,100, a rise of 36.7%. At the higher rate the figures are 68.3% for Part B (Rs. 3,150 to Rs. 5,300) and 35.9% for Part A (Rs. 3,900 to Rs. 5,300). Part D gained most of all: paragraph 8.10.76 records a “slight increase on the consideration that the minimum rate of RHA should be” Rs. 1,000 a month, which took the lower Part D rate from Rs. 480 to Rs. 1,000.

The Special Compensatory (Hill Area) Allowance was handled differently. DoE OM No. 4/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 13 July 2017 abolished it outright from 1 July 2017 and did not move it into any tier. The OM gives no reason; paragraph 8.10.80 of the report had found “hardly any hardship involved at altitudes of 1000 metres above sea level”. The hill area allowance and the remote locality allowance are separate cases: one ended, the other changed name. For the full list of what the 7th CPC ended, see allowances abolished by the 7th CPC.

The 19 July 2017 OM and its rate table

DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 is the operative order for central government civilians. It issues “in supersession of the existing orders” for the four subsumed allowances, takes effect from 1 July 2017 under paragraph 10, and prints a single rate table:

The rate is flat, not a percentage of pay, and the OM sets no pay ceiling. Paragraph 3 defines “Pay Level” as the level in the pay matrix, so a Level 8 employee at the top cell of the level draws Rs. 5,125 in a Tough Location Allowance-I place and a Level 9 employee at the entry cell of Rs. 53,100 draws Rs. 6,625.

The OM runs to 12 paragraphs and four annexures. Six of those paragraphs decide most individual cases: paragraph 2 (the escalator), paragraph 4 (pre-revised pay scale optees), paragraph 7 (overlapping categories), paragraph 8 (Special Duty Allowance), paragraph 9 (Hard Area Allowance) and paragraph 11 (who is covered). Each is set out under its own heading below.

Places in Parts A to D

The places are listed state by state in Annexures I to IV to DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017, and the annexure a place sits in fixes its tier. The summary below follows the annexures; the full entries name tehsils, panchayats and villages.

Four readings of the list settle most questions. Every central government office in Himachal Pradesh qualifies at some tier, because Annexure IV covers the remainder of the State. Shimla town is a Part C place and draws the same tier as the whole of Manipur. Leh District was listed under Jammu and Kashmir in 2017 and has been part of the Union territory of Ladakh since 31 October 2019, and the annexure entry covering “all other places in the District” reaches every posting there. The Kathua, Udhampur, Doda and Baramulla entries name specific sub-areas, so a posting at those district headquarters does not qualify on the district name alone.

The classification is the Department of Expenditure’s, printed in the OM. A paying office reads the tier from the annexure entry for the station. The 7th CPC, at paragraph 8.10.79, endorsed an expert committee to map hardship by factors “like altitude, temperature, remoteness”, and the 2017 OM classifies places by the same Part A to D structure that paragraph 3 of the 2008 OM continued.

One place, two categories: the higher-rate rule

A place listed under more than one category draws one Tough Location Allowance at the higher rate, never two. Paragraph 7 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 repeats paragraph 8.10.63 of the 7th CPC report, under which “the higher rate of Tough Location Allowance will be applicable”.

The rule matters only where a remote locality place is also a bad climate, tribal or Sunderban area, because those three heads all sit in Tough Location Allowance-III. A Part C place in a notified tribal area draws Tough Location Allowance-II, Rs. 4,250 or Rs. 3,375 a month from 1 January 2024, and nothing more for the tribal status.

The option to keep the old rate with Special Duty Allowance

Tough Location Allowance and Special Duty Allowance are not paid together, but the remote locality allowance can be: at the 6th CPC rate, alongside Special Duty Allowance at 10% of basic pay. Paragraph 8 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 states:

Tough Location Allowances shall not be admissible along with Special Duty Allowance. However, employees have the option for continuing Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance at old rates of 6th CPC, where it was admissible, along with Special Duty Allowance at revised rate of 10% of Basic Pay.

Paragraph 3 of the Special Duty Allowance OM, DoE OM No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B) issued in July 2017, gives the same option from the other side. The 7th CPC had proposed a flat bar: paragraph 8.10.63 states that “Tough Location Allowance will, however, not be admissible along with Special Duty Allowance”. The option was the Government’s modification.

The option is open only to the remote locality head, and only to an employee who meets the conditions of the Special Duty Allowance itself, which the Special Duty Allowance OM and the orders it continues set; the comparisons below assume that eligibility. Special Duty Allowance is paid in the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, so the places where it can be exercised are the remote locality places in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Leh. A Part C place in Himachal Pradesh, such as Shimla, has no Special Duty Allowance and so no option.

What “old rates of 6th CPC” means

Neither OM states a rupee figure, and the phrase supports two readings: the 2008 base rate (Rs. 2,000 in a Part A place below grade pay Rs. 5,400) or the escalated rate in force on 30 June 2017 (Rs. 3,000). Neither OM resolves the choice, and no Department of Expenditure clarification fixing a figure is cited by the paying offices, so the reading applied by the paying office decides the amount. The Government of Tripura took a third reading for its own employees: Finance Department Memorandum No. F.2(2)-FIN(G)/Ex-I & II/11 dated 20 April 2022 escalated the 2008 base against 6th CPC dearness allowance and fixed the higher Part B rate at Rs. 3,675 from 1 January 2019. That is a State order and does not bind central offices.

Break-even basic pay: a salary-calculator.in table

The option pays more above a break-even basic pay, because Special Duty Allowance grows with pay and the two other figures are flat. The break-even is the Tough Location rate from 1 January 2024 less the old remote locality rate, divided by 0.1. This table is a salary-calculator.in computation from the rates in the two OMs.

For Part A at Level 8 and below on the 2008 reading, the figure is (Rs. 5,125 less Rs. 2,000) divided by 0.1, or Rs. 31,250. In a Part A place the crossover falls inside Level 5 on the 2008 reading, at its fourth cell of Rs. 31,900, and at the Level 3 entry cell of Rs. 21,700 on the 2016 reading; below those cells Tough Location Allowance-I pays more. In Assam and Meghalaya, both Part D, the option wins at every level for an employee eligible for Special Duty Allowance.

The comparison moves over time. Special Duty Allowance rises with each increment and promotion, the Tough Location rates rise by 25% when dearness allowance reaches 100%, and the old remote locality rate stays fixed on either reading. Special Duty Allowance also carries a condition the Tough Location Allowance does not: paragraph 4 of OM No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B) stops it during leave, training or tour beyond full calendar months spent outside the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, and during suspension and joining time.

The election with Hard Area Allowance in the islands

In the Nicobar group and the named Lakshadweep islands, an employee chooses between the remote locality tier and Hard Area Allowance, not both. Paragraph 9 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 offers “either Hard Area Allowance which is admissible alongwith Island Special Duty Allowance or one of the Special Compensatory Allowance, subsumed under Tough Location Allowance”.

Hard Area Allowance is paid at 20% or 12% of basic pay under DoE OM No. 13/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 14 July 2017, and paragraph 9 pairs it with the Island Special Duty Allowance under DoE OM No. 12/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 18 July 2017; the comparison below is of Hard Area Allowance against the tier rate alone. The whole of Lakshadweep and the Nicobar Islands are Part A places, so the comparison is against Tough Location Allowance-I. At the 20% rate Hard Area Allowance pays more once basic pay passes Rs. 25,625 at Level 8 and below (Rs. 5,125 divided by 0.2), and at every cell from Level 9 upward. In South Andaman and Port Blair no Hard Area Allowance is paid, so a Part B employee there simply draws Tough Location Allowance-I.

Pay scale optees, absence and the escalator

Employees who kept the 6th CPC pay scale

An employee who opted under the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 to stay on a pre-revised pay scale still draws Tough Location Allowance, not the old remote locality allowance. Paragraph 4 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 uses “the corresponding Level in the Pay Matrix of the post occupied on 01.01.2016” to decide the band. For nearly every post the result matches a reading of grade pay: Rs. 5,400 and above gives the Level 9 and above rate.

Leave, tour, training and suspension

The 19 July 2017 OM sets no condition on leave, tour, training, joining time or suspension. The condition commonly repeated for this allowance belongs to Special Duty Allowance under paragraph 4 of OM No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B). A department that stops Tough Location Allowance during absence does so on its own instructions, and the drawing and disbursing officer holds them.

The 25% escalator and the 1 January 2024 rates

The tier rates rise by 25% each time dearness allowance on the 7th CPC pay structure rises by 50%, under paragraph 2 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B), the same wording paragraph 6 of the 2008 OM used. The first step took effect on 1 January 2024, when DoE OM No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 raised dearness allowance to 50%.

No Department of Expenditure order tabulates the enhanced figures. Department of Telecommunications OM No. 6-23(1)/2025/PAT dated 2 July 2025 records that the Department of Expenditure, by ID Note No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 20 March 2024, “reiterated their position that no separate order with regard to increase of allowances consequent upon increase in DA rates to 50% is required”, and tabulates the Rs. 6,625, Rs. 4,250 and Rs. 1,500 higher rates for its own staff.

Dearness allowance is now 60%, and the next step comes at 100%. On the 2008 precedent, where the second step added 25% of the base rate, Tough Location Allowance-I would reach Rs. 7,950 and Rs. 6,150 at that point; those are projections from the paragraph 2 wording, not notified rates. The escalator does not touch the old remote locality rate drawn under the paragraph 8 option.

Defence, railways and the Central Armed Police Forces

The civilian OM covers civilians paid from the Defence Services Estimates under its paragraph 11, and leaves armed forces personnel and railway employees to separate orders. Paragraph 12 records the concurrence of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the Indian Audit and Accounts Department.

The defence letter applies the remote locality head only. It does not extend the bad climate, tribal or Sunderban heads to armed forces personnel, and personnel who kept the pre-revised pay draw at the level mapped under the Army Pay Rules, Air Force Pay Rules and Navy Pay Regulations, 2017. For Central Armed Police Forces personnel, the 7th CPC recommended at paragraph 8.15.24 that the remote locality tier sit inside a package choice; the terms actually paid follow the Ministry of Home Affairs implementing order.

Worked examples

Each example applies the 1 January 2024 rates of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017. Where Special Duty Allowance is payable, it sets them against the paragraph 8 option, the remote locality allowance at 6th CPC rates plus Special Duty Allowance at 10% of basic pay, on the two readings of the old rate: the 2008 base under DoE OM No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B), and the 1.5 times figure in force in 2016. Each assumes the employee is eligible for Special Duty Allowance.

Level 6 in Gangtok, Sikkim (Part A). Basic pay is Rs. 39,900, the fifth cell of Level 6. Tough Location Allowance-I alone pays Rs. 5,125 a month. The paragraph 8 option pays Special Duty Allowance of Rs. 3,990 plus the Part A rate below grade pay Rs. 5,400: Rs. 2,000 on the 2008 reading or Rs. 3,000 on the 2016 reading, a total of Rs. 5,990 or Rs. 6,990. The option pays Rs. 865 or Rs. 1,865 a month more.

Level 10 in Kohima, Nagaland (Part B). Basic pay at the Level 10 entry cell is Rs. 56,100. Tough Location Allowance-I pays Rs. 6,625. The option pays Rs. 5,610 plus Rs. 2,100 or Rs. 3,150, which is Rs. 7,710 or Rs. 8,760, so the option wins by Rs. 1,085 or Rs. 2,135 a month.

Level 4 in Port Blair (Part B). Port Blair is outside the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, so the paragraph 8 option does not arise, and no Hard Area Allowance is paid there, so the paragraph 9 election does not arise either. The employee draws Tough Location Allowance-I at Rs. 5,125 a month, Rs. 61,500 a year, on top of basic pay, dearness allowance and house rent allowance.

Level 3 in Guwahati, Assam (Part D). Basic pay at the Level 3 entry cell is Rs. 21,700. Tough Location Allowance-III pays Rs. 1,250. The option pays Rs. 2,170 plus Rs. 320 or Rs. 480, which is Rs. 2,490 or Rs. 2,650. The option is worth about twice the tier rate, and stays ahead at every level in Assam.

Tax treatment

In the old regime the remote locality allowance is exempt up to a monthly cap that covers the current rates in full; in the default regime it is taxed in full. Rule 280(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026, prescribes the caps for serial 13 of the Table in Schedule III to the Income-tax Act, 2025 from 1 April 2026.

Three limits apply. Column D of each entry withholds the exemption where the employee claims serial 4, 5 or 9, the compensatory field area, modified field area and counter-insurgency entries. The entries name the remote locality allowance, so Tough Location Allowance-III paid under the bad climate, tribal or Sunderban head is not covered on the text of the rule. And the Level 9 and above rates would exceed all three caps if the second escalator step lifted them to the projected Rs. 7,950, Rs. 5,100 and Rs. 1,800.

In the default regime, Section 202(2)(a)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 computes income without the serial 12 and 13 exemptions other than those rule 280(3) preserves, and serials 1 to 3 are not among them. For the financial year 2025-26 the return follows Section 10(14) of the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961 read with Rule 2BB(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962. The wider comparison is in old versus new tax regime and income tax for government employees, and the amount appears in Form 16.

The 8th CPC

The Parts, the tiers and the rates in DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 stay in force until the Government decides on the recommendations of the 8th Central Pay Commission, constituted by Department of Expenditure Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025 with 18 months to report. No revised rate exists to state before that decision.

Two matters from 2017 remain open for that Commission. The place list is still organised by the Part A to D structure of the 2008 scheme, not by a remoteness index of the kind paragraph 8.10.79 of the 7th CPC report endorsed. And paragraph 8 of the 2017 OM still pays the remote locality allowance at 6th CPC rates more than nine years after 1 July 2017, without a central figure for what those rates are.

Related Articles

• Tough Location Allowance
• Risk and Hardship Allowance
• Special Duty Allowance
• Hard area allowance
• Island special duty allowance
• Tribal area allowance
• Bad climate allowance
• Sunderban allowance
• Hill area allowance
• High altitude and Siachen allowance
• Field area allowance
• Counter-insurgency operations allowance
• Allowances abolished by the 7th CPC
• Allowances for central government employees
• Dearness allowance
• House rent allowance
• Detachment allowance
• Ration money allowance
• Central Armed Police Forces
• CAPF Constable salary
• Railway employees
• Pay matrix
• Basic pay
• Grade pay
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Salary by pay level
• Take-home salary for central government employees
• Drawing and disbursing officer
• Income tax for government employees
• Old versus new tax regime
• Income-tax Act, 2025
• Department of Expenditure
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Central government employees in India
• 7th CPC salary calculator

External references

• Department of Expenditure: Tough Location Allowance OM dated 19 July 2017
• Department of Expenditure: Special Duty Allowance OM
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• Ministry of Defence: 7th CPC allowance letters, including Tough Location Allowance
• Department of Personnel and Training
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008: revised rates of Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance by Part and grade pay from 1 September 2008, the 25% escalator and the option between special compensatory allowances, in partial modification of OM No. 3/1/98-E.II(B) dated 20 July 1998.
2. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, November 2015, Chapter 8.10: paragraphs 8.10.49 (rates in force), 8.10.62 and 8.10.63 (subsuming and the higher-rate rule), 8.10.74 to 8.10.76 (derivation of the R3H1 to R3H3 rates), 8.10.79 and 8.10.80; and paragraph 8.15.24 (Central Armed Police Forces).
3. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution No. 11-1/2016-IC dated 6 July 2017: Government decision on the 7th CPC recommendations on allowances.
4. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017: Special Compensatory Allowances subsumed under Tough Location Allowance, paragraphs 1 to 12 and Annexures I to IV, effective 1 July 2017.
5. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B), July 2017: Special Duty Allowance for the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, paragraphs 3 and 4.
6. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 4/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 13 July 2017: abolition of the Special Compensatory (Hill Area) Allowance from 1 July 2017.
7. Ministry of Defence letter No. PC-1(16)/2017/D(Pay/Services), November 2017: Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance subsumed under Tough Location Allowance for armed forces personnel.
8. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 (dearness allowance at 50% from 1 January 2024), and Department of Telecommunications OM No. 6-23(1)/2025/PAT dated 2 July 2025 reciting DoE ID Note No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 20 March 2024.
9. Income-tax Act, 2025, Schedule III Table serial 13 and Section 202(2)(a)(ii), read with rule 280(2), serials 1 to 3, and rule 280(3) of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026.