Tough Location Allowance

Tough Location Allowance is a monthly allowance paid to central government employees posted in notified remote, bad-climate, tribal and Sunderban areas, created by the 7th Central Pay Commission and implemented from 1 July 2017 by Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017. It has three tiers, set in cells R3H1, R3H2 and R3H3 of the Risk and Hardship Matrix, and pays Rs. 6,625, Rs. 4,250 or Rs. 1,500 a month at Level 9 and above from 1 January 2024.

The allowance replaced four older payments. The Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance, the Bad Climate Allowance, the Tribal Area Allowance and the Sunderban Allowance each had its own schedule and its own rate table under the 6th Central Pay Commission. The 19 July 2017 OM superseded the orders for all four and paid them under one name, with the tier decided by the place of posting and the rate within the tier decided by the employee’s level in the pay matrix.

For an employee posted to Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland, Lakshadweep, Leh or the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the allowance is one of the larger additions to pay after dearness allowance and house-rent allowance: Rs. 61,500 a year at Level 8 and below in a Tough Location Allowance-I place, and Rs. 79,500 at Level 9 and above. In the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh it also sets up a choice against the Special Duty Allowance, which the 2017 orders resolve through an option whose better choice depends on the employee’s level, the Part of the place and basic pay.

This article sets out the rates and how the 7th CPC derived them, the four allowances the tiers absorbed, the places in each tier, the three election rules in paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 of the OM, the dearness-allowance escalator, the orders for defence and railway staff, the tax treatment under the Income-tax Act, 2025, and the abolished hill area allowance that is often mistaken for part of it.

Rates by tier and pay level

Tough Location Allowance is paid at two rates in each tier: one for Level 9 and above and one for Level 8 and below. The base rates are those printed in the table to DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017, and the current rates apply from 1 January 2024 after dearness allowance reached 50%.

The rate is a flat monthly sum, not a percentage of basic pay, and the OM sets no pay ceiling: every level from 1 to 18 falls into one of the two bands. Paragraph 3 of the OM defines “Pay Level” as the level in the pay matrix, so the band is read from the level alone, without reference to the cell within it. A Level 8 employee at the top of the level draws Rs. 5,125 in a Tough Location Allowance-I place; a Level 9 employee at the entry cell draws Rs. 6,625.

How the 7th CPC derived the rates

The Commission built each tier from the remote locality rates in force when it reported. Paragraph 8.10.49 of the report lists those rates, and paragraphs 8.10.74 to 8.10.76 apply a factor of 1.5 to them, the same factor used across the risk and hardship allowances.

The third tier gained most. Paragraph 8.10.76 records a “slight increase on the consideration that the minimum rate of RHA should be ₹1,000 pm”, which lifted the lower Part D rate from Rs. 480 to Rs. 1,000, a rise of 108%. The Bad Climate and Tribal Area allowances that joined the same tier had been paid at Rs. 600 and Rs. 360 (paragraphs 8.10.6 and 8.10.58), and the Sunderban Allowance at Rs. 90 to Rs. 360 by pay in the pay band (paragraph 8.10.55), so an employee in a tribal area at a lower grade went from Rs. 360 to Rs. 1,000 a month on 1 July 2017.

The grade pay boundary and the level boundary coincide. Grade pay of Rs. 5,400 sits at Levels 9 and 10 of the 7th CPC matrix, and every grade pay below it maps to Level 8 or lower, so an employee who was on the higher remote locality rate under the 6th CPC is on the higher Tough Location Allowance rate now.

The four allowances it replaced

The opening paragraph of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) supersedes “the existing orders” for four allowances “which have been subsumed in Tough Location Allowance”, and its rate table maps each to a tier. The mapping follows paragraph 8.10.62 of the 7th CPC report, which describes these as allowances “based on geographical location and are meant to compensate for hardship faced by employees posted at such places”.

The 7th CPC summary table of allowances records each of the four as “Abolished as a separate allowance”, which is the report’s term for a subsumed allowance. The Special Compensatory (Hill Area) Allowance is not on the list: it was abolished outright, a different outcome covered in its own section below. For the full list of what the 7th CPC ended, see allowances abolished by the 7th CPC.

Places that qualify for each tier

The remote locality places are listed state by state in Annexures I to IV to the 19 July 2017 OM, and their Part decides the tier. The bad climate, tribal and Sunderban places have no annexure and are fixed by paragraphs 5 and 6 of the OM.

Four features of the list decide most cases. All of Himachal Pradesh qualifies at some tier, because Annexure IV sweeps in every area not named in Parts A to C, so a central government office anywhere in the State draws at least Tough Location Allowance-III. Shimla town and Dharamsala town are Part C places and draw Tough Location Allowance-II, the same tier as the whole of Manipur. Leh District was listed under Jammu and Kashmir in 2017 and has formed part of the Union territory of Ladakh since 31 October 2019 under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019; the annexure entry covers “all other places in the District” and so reaches every posting there. The Kathua, Udhampur, Doda and Baramulla entries name specific niabats, illaqas and tehsils, so a posting at the district headquarters of those districts does not qualify on the district name alone.

Paragraphs 5 and 6 tie three of the heads to State practice. The Sunderban allowance “shall be admissible only upto the period for which the Government of West Bengal continues to pay this allowance to its employees”. The tribal area and bad climate allowances are admissible only in States where the State pays them and are discontinued from the date a State stops. The 2017 OM prints no area list for either, so the qualifying places are those in the earlier central orders that the State practice still supports.

One allowance per place: the higher-rate rule

A place that qualifies under more than one head draws a single Tough Location Allowance at the higher rate. Paragraph 7 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) states that “In the event of a place falling in more than one category, the higher rate of Tough Location Allowance will be applicable”, repeating paragraph 8.10.63 of the 7th CPC report, which called such a case “unlikely”.

The rule matters only where a remote locality overlaps a tribal or bad climate area. A Part C place in a notified tribal area draws Tough Location Allowance-II at Rs. 4,250 or Rs. 3,375, not that plus Tough Location Allowance-III. The bad climate, tribal and Sunderban heads all sit in the third tier, so two of them overlapping changes nothing: the rate is Rs. 1,500 or Rs. 1,250 either way.

Tough Location Allowance and Special Duty Allowance

Tough Location Allowance and Special Duty Allowance are not paid together, but the 2017 orders give an option. Paragraph 8 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 reads:

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) dated 18 July 2017, gives the same option from the other side, as “the additional option to avail of the benefit of Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance (SCRLA) as per 6th Central Pay Commission rates along with Special Duty Allowance at revised rates”. The 7th CPC had recommended a flat bar at paragraph 8.10.63; the option was the Government’s modification, announced at item 5 of the Department of Expenditure press note on the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017.

The two options are:

1. Tough Location Allowance alone, at the matrix rate for the tier and level.
2. The old remote locality allowance at 6th CPC rates, plus Special Duty Allowance at 10% of basic pay.

The option exists only for the remote locality head. Bad climate, tribal and Sunderban places have no counterpart in either paragraph, and Special Duty Allowance is paid only in the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, so the practical field is the remote locality places in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Leh.

The two readings of “old rates of 6th CPC”

Neither paragraph gives a rupee figure, and the phrase supports two readings. The 6th CPC rates were set by DoE OM No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008 with effect from 1 September 2008, and that OM also provided that they would rise by 25% each time dearness allowance on the revised pay went up by 50%. By 2016 two such steps had applied, which is why the rates in paragraph 8.10.49 of the 7th CPC report are exactly 1.5 times the 2008 figures.

The Department of Expenditure has issued no clarification between the two columns. The Government of Tripura took a third reading for its own employees: its Finance Department memorandum of 20 April 2022 escalated the 2008 base with 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 government offices.

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

The option turns on basic pay, because Special Duty Allowance grows with pay and Tough Location Allowance does not. Setting Tough Location Allowance at the 1 January 2024 rates against 10% of basic pay plus the old remote locality rate gives the basic pay above which the option pays more. The table is a salary-calculator.in computation from the rates above.

Each break-even figure is the Tough Location Allowance rate less the old rate, divided by 0.1. For Part A at Level 8 and below on the 2008 base reading, that is (Rs. 5,125 less Rs. 2,000) divided by 0.1, or Rs. 31,250. Level 1 starts at Rs. 18,000 and Level 5 at Rs. 29,200, so on that reading Levels 1 to 5 in the Part A and Part B places do better on Tough Location Allowance: Sikkim, all of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Leh, the difficult areas of Tripura, and the Chimptuipui and Lunglei districts of Mizoram. Employees at Level 9 and above, and in Part D places such as Assam and Meghalaya, do better on the option.

The comparison is a snapshot. The Tough Location Allowance rates rise by 25% when dearness allowance reaches 100%, Special Duty Allowance rises with every increment and promotion, and the old remote locality rate stays fixed on either reading of paragraph 8. The Special Duty Allowance also carries a condition that 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.

Hard Area Allowance and Island Special Duty Allowance

Paragraph 9 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) sets a second election: an employee chooses “either Hard Area Allowance which is admissible alongwith Island Special Duty Allowance or one of the Special Compensatory Allowance, subsumed under Tough Location Allowance”. The hard area allowance is paid at 20% or 12% of basic pay in the Nicobar group, Minicoy and seven other Lakshadweep islands under DoE OM No. 13/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 14 July 2017, and the Island Special Duty Allowance at 10%, 16% or 20% under DoE OM No. 12/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 18 July 2017.

The election bites in the islands because the whole of Lakshadweep and the Nicobar Islands are Part A places. An employee at Level 7 on basic pay of Rs. 44,900 in the Nicobar group draws 20% hard area allowance (Rs. 8,980) plus Island Special Duty Allowance, against Tough Location Allowance-I of Rs. 5,125 with the same Island Special Duty Allowance. At the 20% rate the hard area allowance pays more once basic pay passes Rs. 25,625 at Level 8 and below, and at every Level 9 and above cell; at the 12% rate the crossover is Rs. 42,708 at Level 8 and below and Rs. 55,208 at Level 9 and above. In South Andaman and Port Blair, where no hard area allowance is paid, the employee simply draws Tough Location Allowance-I.

Other allowances in the same matrix cells

Tough Location Allowance shares its three cells with duty-based allowances, and sharing a cell does not merge them. Paragraph 8.10.74 puts High Altitude Allowance Category II, Boiler Watch Keeping Allowance and Submarine Duty Allowance in R3H1; paragraph 8.10.75 puts High Altitude Allowance Category I, Project Allowance, Compensatory (Construction or Survey) Allowance and Hydrographic Survey Allowance for surveyors in R3H2; and paragraph 8.10.76 puts Cooking Allowance, Health and Malaria Allowance, Hardlying Money and Special Level Crossing Gate Allowance in R3H3.

The cell fixes the rate, and each allowance keeps its own eligibility. Whether a place-based Tough Location Allowance can run alongside a duty-based allowance from another cell is a question for the admissibility rules of each allowance and for the matrix’s concurrent-admissibility rules. The 19 July 2017 OM names only two bars, Special Duty Allowance and Hard Area Allowance.

The report also used Tough Location Allowance to draw a boundary for a different allowance. Paragraph 8.10.80 extended High Altitude Allowance to civilian employees at high-altitude locations where Tough Location Allowance or another risk and hardship allowance is not admissible.

Employees on the pre-revised pay scale

An employee who opted under the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 to stay on a 6th CPC pay scale still draws Tough Location Allowance, not the old allowance. Paragraph 4 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) provides that “the corresponding Level in the Pay Matrix of the post occupied on 01.01.2016 as indicated in CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016 would determine the allowance under these orders”.

The level is therefore that of the post held on 1 January 2016, as mapped by the First Schedule to the 2016 Rules, not the employee’s grade pay or current post. For almost every case the answer is the same as reading grade pay directly: grade pay of Rs. 5,400 and above gives the Level 9 and above rate, and anything below gives the Level 8 and below rate.

Leave, tour, training and suspension

DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017 contains no condition on leave, tour, training, joining time, temporary transfer or suspension. Its 12 paragraphs cover the rate table, the escalator, the pay-level definition, pre-revised optees, the Sunderban, tribal and bad climate conditions, the three election rules, the effective date, defence civilians and the Indian Audit and Accounts Department.

The condition often quoted for Tough Location Allowance belongs to a different allowance. Paragraph 4 of the Special Duty Allowance OM, No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B), bars that allowance during leave, training or tour beyond full calendar months outside the North-Eastern Region and Ladakh, and during suspension and joining time. It does not extend to Tough Location Allowance, and any restriction a department applies to Tough Location Allowance during absence rests on that department’s own instructions, which is the first thing to ask the drawing and disbursing officer for.

Who is covered: civilians, defence and railways

The 19 July 2017 OM covers central government civilian employees. Paragraph 11 extends it to “the civilian employees paid from the Defence Services Estimates” and states that for armed forces personnel and railway employees, “separate orders will be issued by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Railways, respectively”. Paragraph 12 records that it issues with the concurrence of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the Indian Audit and Accounts Department.

The defence letter follows the civilian OM closely. It refers to Ministry of Defence letters of 4 November 2008 for the earlier remote locality terms, provides that 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, and reproduces the civilian Annexures I to IV. It covers only the remote locality head, not the bad climate, tribal or Sunderban heads. For the Central Armed Police Forces, paragraph 8.15.24 of the 7th CPC report recommended one package of “Detachment Allowance + [Special Duty Allowance (as and where applicable) OR Tough Location Allowance (as and where applicable)]”, the detachment allowance option, against another of risk and hardship allowance plus the ration money allowance. Railway employees draw under separate Railway Board instructions, as paragraph 11 of the OM provides; railway pay levels are set by the railway pay rules.

The 25% escalator and the 2024 rates

Tough Location Allowance rises by 25% each time dearness allowance on the 7th CPC pay structure rises by 50%. Paragraph 2 of DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) makes the increase automatic “whenever the Dearness Allowance payable on the revised pay structure goes up by” 50%, the escalator the 7th CPC attached to the whole risk and hardship matrix at paragraph 8.10.66.

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 re-tabulates the Tough Location Allowance figures. A 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 then tabulates the enhanced rates for its own staff at the figures in the rate table above.

Dearness allowance is now 60%, and the next step comes when it reaches 100%. The 2008 remote locality order used the same wording, and its rates stood at 1.5 times the base after two steps (Rs. 2,600 to Rs. 3,900 for Part A), so the second step added 25% of the base rate, not 25% of the enhanced rate. On that precedent, the second step would put the tiers at the following figures.

Those are projections from the 2008 precedent and the paragraph 2 wording, not notified rates. The escalator has no bearing on the old remote locality rate drawn under the paragraph 8 option, which stays at 6th CPC rates.

Worked examples

Level 6 in Kohima, Nagaland. Nagaland is a Part B place, so the tier is Tough Location Allowance-I. At Level 6 with basic pay of Rs. 39,900 the employee draws Rs. 5,125 a month on Tough Location Allowance alone. On the paragraph 8 option the employee draws Special Duty Allowance of Rs. 3,990 plus the Part B remote locality rate for grade pay below Rs. 5,400: Rs. 1,600 on the 2008 base reading or Rs. 2,400 on the 7th CPC reading, for Rs. 5,590 or Rs. 6,390. The option pays Rs. 465 or Rs. 1,265 a month more, and the gap widens with each increment.

Level 2 in Gangtok, Sikkim. Sikkim is a Part A place. At Level 2 with basic pay of Rs. 19,900 the choice is Rs. 5,125 against Rs. 1,990 plus Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 3,000, which is Rs. 3,990 or Rs. 4,990. Tough Location Allowance-I pays Rs. 1,135 or Rs. 135 a month more, and remains the better option until basic pay passes Rs. 31,250 or Rs. 21,250.

Level 11 in Shimla. Shimla town is a Part C place and Himachal Pradesh has no Special Duty Allowance, so there is no option to exercise. A Level 11 officer draws Tough Location Allowance-II at Rs. 4,250 a month, Rs. 51,000 a year, on top of basic pay, dearness allowance and house-rent allowance.

Level 4 in a tribal area. A Level 4 employee in a notified tribal area of a State that still pays the tribal area allowance to its own staff draws Tough Location Allowance-III at Rs. 1,250 a month. Before 1 July 2017 the same post drew the Tribal Area Allowance at Rs. 360.

Tax treatment

Tough Location Allowance is taxable in full in the default tax regime and exempt up to a monthly cap in the old regime where it is paid for a remote locality place. 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.

At the 2024 rates the three caps cover the remote locality tiers in full at both levels. Each entry is withheld where the employee claims the field area, modified field area or counter-insurgency exemption at serial 4, 5 or 9. The three entries name the remote locality allowance, so Tough Location Allowance-III paid under the bad climate, tribal area or Sunderban head is not covered by them on the text of the rule, and the table has no separate entry for those heads. If the tiers rise on the second escalator step to the figures projected above, all three Level 9 and above rates would exceed their caps: Rs. 7,950 against Rs. 7,000, Rs. 5,100 against Rs. 4,500 and Rs. 1,800 against Rs. 1,500. The Level 8 and below rates of Rs. 6,150, Rs. 4,050 and Rs. 1,500 would stay within them.

In the default regime, Section 202(2)(a)(ii) of the Income-tax Act, 2025 computes income without these serial 13 exemptions, and rule 280(3) preserves none of serials 1 to 3, so the whole allowance is taxed with salary. For the financial year 2025-26 the return follows the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961 and Rule 2BB(2) of the Income-tax Rules, 1962, whose remote locality caps were lower. The wider comparison is in old versus new tax regime and income tax for central government employees, and the amount appears in Form 16.

Hill area allowance: abolished, not subsumed

The Special Compensatory (Hill Area) Allowance was not merged into Tough Location Allowance. DoE OM No. 4/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 13 July 2017 states that it “stands abolished with effect from 1st July, 2017”, withdrawing the entitlement under OM No. 4(2)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008. The order gives no reason; paragraph 8.10.80 of the 7th CPC report, which listed it among 19 allowances to abolish, found “hardly any hardship involved at altitudes of 1000 metres above sea level”.

The hill area allowance had been paid at Rs. 900 and Rs. 720 a month (paragraph 8.10.48) to employees at stations 1,000 metres or more above sea level. A hill station that is also on the remote locality list keeps an allowance through that list: Shimla town and Dalhousie are Part C places, and the whole of Himachal Pradesh is at least Part D. A hill station outside the remote locality annexures, the bad climate and tribal areas, lost its allowance on 1 July 2017.

Tough Location Allowance and the 8th CPC

The rates, the tiers and the place lists in DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) remain 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. Until the Government accepts a recommendation on the allowance, no revised rate exists to state.

Two matters remain open from 2017. Paragraph 8.10.79 of the 7th CPC report endorsed an expert committee to map hardship across the country from factors “like altitude, temperature, remoteness”, on the model of the Remoteness Index of Australia, and no such index has replaced the remote locality annexures. Paragraph 8 of the 2017 OM still pays an allowance at 6th CPC rates more than nine years after 1 July 2017, without a central figure for what those rates are.

Related Articles

• Risk and Hardship Allowance
• Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance
• Bad Climate Allowance
• Tribal Area Allowance
• Sunderban Allowance
• Hill Area Allowance
• Special Duty Allowance
• Hard Area Allowance
• Island Special Duty Allowance
• High Altitude and Siachen Allowance
• Field Area Allowance
• Project Allowance
• Compensatory (Construction or Survey) Allowance
• Health and Malaria Allowance
• Split Duty Allowance
• Detachment Allowance
• Ration Money Allowance
• Allowances abolished by the 7th CPC
• Allowances for central government employees
• Dearness Allowance
• House Rent Allowance
• Transport Allowance
• Pay Matrix
• Basic Pay
• Grade Pay
• Pay Band
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Defence Pay Matrix
• Railway Services (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Railway employees
• Central Armed Police Forces
• Central Reserve Police Force
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Department of Expenditure
• Committee on Allowances
• Drawing and Disbursing Officer
• Joining Time
• Suspension
• Earned Leave
• Transfer
• Income-tax Act, 2025
• Old versus new tax regime
• New Tax Regime
• Income tax for central government employees
• Form 16

External references

• DoE OM No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017, Tough Location Allowance, Department of Expenditure
• DoE OM No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B), Special Duty Allowance, Department of Expenditure
• Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, Department of Expenditure
• Ministry of Defence allowance letters, including the Tough Location Allowance letter of November 2017
• Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 3/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 19 July 2017, “Grant of Special Compensatory Allowances subsumed under Tough Location Allowance”: rate table and paragraphs 2 (escalator), 3 (pay level), 4 (pre-revised optees), 5 (Sunderban), 6 (tribal and bad climate), 7 (higher rate), 8 (Special Duty Allowance option), 9 (Hard Area Allowance option), 10 (effect from 1 July 2017), 11 (defence civilians, armed forces and railways) and Annexures I to IV (remote locality Parts A to D).
2. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (19 November 2015), Chapter 8.10: paragraphs 8.10.6, 8.10.48, 8.10.49, 8.10.55 and 8.10.58 (pre-revised rates), 8.10.62 and 8.10.63 (Tough Location Allowance), 8.10.66 (escalator), 8.10.74 to 8.10.76 (cells R3H1 to R3H3 and their derivation), 8.10.79 (hardship index) and 8.10.80 (allowances abolished, including hill area); Chapter 8.15, paragraph 8.15.24 (Central Armed Police Forces).
3. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 11/1/2017-E.II(B) dated 18 July 2017, “Grant of Special Duty Allowance for the Central Government employees serving in the North Eastern Region and Ladakh”: paragraphs 3 (option) and 4 (leave, tour, suspension and joining time).
4. 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.
5. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Office Memorandum No. 3(1)/2008-E.II(B) dated 29 August 2008: Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance rates on the 6th CPC recommendations, effective 1 September 2008, modifying OM No. 3/1/98-E.II(B) dated 20 July 1998.
6. Ministry of Defence letter No. PC-1(16)/2017/D(Pay/Services) of November 2017: Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance subsumed under Tough Location Allowance for armed forces personnel, effective 1 July 2017.
7. Department of Telecommunications Office Memorandum No. 6-23(1)/2025/PAT dated 2 July 2025, reciting Department of Expenditure ID Note No. 2/5/2017-E.II(B) dated 20 March 2024, and tabulating Tough Location Allowance rates from 1 January 2024; Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E-II(B) dated 12 March 2024 (dearness allowance at 50% from 1 January 2024).
8. Income-tax Rules, 2026, notified by Central Board of Direct Taxes Notification No. 22/2026, G.S.R. 198(E), dated 20 March 2026: rule 280(2), Table serial numbers 1 to 3, prescribed for serial 13 of the Table in Schedule III to the Income-tax Act, 2025, and rule 280(3); Income-tax Act, 2025, Section 202(2)(a)(ii).
9. 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.
10. Department of Expenditure press note on the Cabinet decision of 28 June 2017 on the 7th CPC allowances, item 5 (option of Special Compensatory (Remote Locality) Allowance at pre-revised rates with Special Duty Allowance at revised rates).