Washing Allowance

Washing Allowance was a monthly amount for laundering supplied uniforms; the 7th CPC folded it into the consolidated Dress Allowance.

Updated 18 July 2026 · Reviewed by Salary-Calculator.in

The Washing Allowance was a small flat monthly allowance paid to a central government employee who was supplied with a uniform or livery, to meet the cost of laundering it and keeping it clean. It compensated the upkeep of a supplied uniform rather than the cost of buying one, and it was drawn mainly by Group C staff in uniformed roles. Under the 7th Central Pay Commission it ceased to exist as a separate allowance: it was subsumed, along with seven other uniform-related allowances, into the consolidated Dress Allowance with effect from 1 July 2017, notified through Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19051/1/2017-E.IV dated 2 August 2017.

The distinction the allowance once drew is a real one. Buying a uniform is a one-off or occasional cost; keeping it clean and serviceable is a recurring one. The old scheme met the two separately, a uniform or clothing allowance for the garment and a washing allowance for its upkeep, and the washing allowance was the modest monthly payment for the laundry. What the 7th CPC did was fold both sides of that cost into one annual amount, so the washing allowance no longer appears on the pay slip as a line of its own.

This article explains what the allowance compensated, who drew it, the small monthly figure it once was, the 7th CPC decision that subsumed it and why, what remains payable in its place, and the tax position, which now runs through the Dress Allowance. It is a child of the allowances hub, and it is best read alongside the Dress Allowance and uniform allowance articles, because the three describe one story from three angles.

What the allowance compensated

A uniform is not a one-time expense. A staff-car driver, a multi-tasking staff member, a canteen worker or a hospital attendant who wears a supplied uniform every working day has to launder it regularly, and a uniform that must look presentable and stay hygienic wears out faster and needs more washing than ordinary clothes. The Washing Allowance answered that recurring upkeep cost. It was not a payment for the garment itself, which was met by a separate uniform or clothing allowance or supplied in kind, and it was not a payment for the person; it was the small monthly sum that recognised the laundry bill that comes with wearing a government uniform on duty.

That is why it sat among the uniform-related allowances rather than among the hardship, duty-pattern or responsibility allowances. It did not depend on where the employee was posted, how their hours fell, or what they were entrusted with; it depended only on being supplied with a uniform that had to be kept clean. It was, in short, a maintenance allowance for a specific item of kit.

Who drew it

The Washing Allowance was for the staff actually supplied with a uniform or livery, and in practice that meant mostly Group C employees in visibly uniformed roles: multi-tasking staff, staff-car drivers, canteen and mess staff, hospital and laboratory attendants, and similar categories whose duty required them to wear a supplied uniform. An employee who was not supplied with a uniform did not draw it, because there was nothing to wash on the office’s account.

Officers and cadres of the uniformed services, the Defence forces, the Central Armed Police Forces, the central armed police forces and the police organisations, met their uniform upkeep through their own kit-maintenance arrangements rather than this small Group C washing allowance, and those arrangements too were later folded into the Dress Allowance. So the washing allowance in its narrow sense was the modest civil-side maintenance payment for supplied liveries, while the parallel maintenance allowances on the uniformed-services side ran alongside it until the same 2017 consolidation swept both up.

The small monthly figure

The Washing Allowance was always a minor amount. It was a flat monthly sum for laundry, set by the governing order of the day, and in the years before it was subsumed it stood well under a hundred rupees a month for staff supplied with liveries. The precise figure and the categories were fixed by the relevant orders and the sixth-Pay-Commission-era instructions rather than by the employee’s pay level, because the laundry cost of a uniform does not scale with seniority.

Because the allowance has been merged into the Dress Allowance since 1 July 2017, there is no current separate washing rate to quote, and it would be wrong to state one as if it were still payable. The figure that matters now is the Dress Allowance for the category, which is meant to include the upkeep the washing allowance once met. Anyone looking for a live washing-allowance amount on a current pay slip will not find it as a separate line for the notified categories; they should look instead at the annual Dress Allowance credited in July.

How the 7th CPC subsumed it

The 7th Central Pay Commission looked at the uniform allowances and found a cluttered field. A uniformed employee could be drawing a scatter of small allowances for the different parts and upkeep of one uniform: a clothing or uniform allowance for the garment, an initial-equipment allowance, a kit-maintenance allowance, a robe and robe-maintenance allowance, a shoe allowance and a washing allowance. Eight small schemes covered one idea, each with its own rule, rate and paperwork, and several of them, the washing allowance among them, were tiny amounts that cost more in administration than they were worth as separate payments.

The Commission’s answer was to replace the lot with a single consolidated Dress Allowance. The Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19051/1/2017-E.IV dated 2 August 2017, effective 1 July 2017, notified the Dress Allowance and listed the allowances it subsumed, the clothing, initial-equipment, kit-maintenance, robe, robe-maintenance, shoe, uniform and washing allowances. From that date none of these is payable separately for a post to which the Dress Allowance applies. The washing allowance did not simply disappear: its purpose, the upkeep of the uniform, was rolled into the single annual amount, which is why the Dress Allowance is described as meeting both the purchase and the maintenance of the uniform.

This is a different fate from an allowance that was abolished outright and a different fate again from one that was retained in its own right. The washing allowance was consolidated: the need it met is still recognised, but it is met now inside a larger, simpler allowance rather than as a standalone monthly payment. It is the same logic that produced the merged Cash Handling and Treasury Allowance on the responsibility side, where two overlapping schemes became one, applied here to the uniform-upkeep side where eight became one.

What remains payable in its place

What a uniformed Group C employee draws now for the whole of the uniform, buying it and keeping it clean, is the Dress Allowance. It is a fixed annual amount by category, from Rs. 6,250 for support staff who wear a uniform up to Rs. 25,000 for officers of the uniformed services at the current enhanced rates, credited to the salary once a year in July rather than paid month by month. That single yearly credit is meant to cover everything the old scatter of allowances covered, including the laundry the washing allowance used to pay for, so there is no separate washing top-up on top of it.

Nurses are the instructive exception. Nursing personnel do not draw one of the annual Dress Allowance slabs; they draw the Dress Allowance at a monthly rate, Rs. 2,250 a month at the current enhanced rate, precisely because the washing, changing and hygiene upkeep of a nurse’s uniform is far higher than for most other categories. The washing element is at its most visible here, built into a monthly rather than an annual payment, but it is still part of the Dress Allowance and not a separate washing allowance. The nursing allowance is a further, distinct payment for the nature of nursing duty and should not be confused with the dress-and-washing element.

Not to be confused with

A few boundaries keep the old washing allowance in its place. It was never a duty-pattern allowance: it had nothing to do with hours, so it is unrelated to the split duty allowance , the overtime allowance or the night duty allowance , which pay for how and when the work is done. It was never a location or hardship allowance either, so it is separate from the risk and hardship allowance and the special duty allowance , which answer where the duty is performed. And it was not a responsibility allowance like the cash-handling payment. It answered one narrow thing, the laundry of a supplied uniform, and that narrow thing now lives inside the Dress Allowance.

It is also worth separating the washing allowance from the uniform allowance in the strict sense. The uniform or clothing allowance met the cost of the garment; the washing allowance met the cost of keeping it clean. Both are historical now for the notified categories, both subsumed by the same 2017 order, but they answered two different sides of the same uniform.

The tax position

Because the washing element is now part of the Dress Allowance, its tax treatment is the Dress Allowance’s tax treatment, and that turns entirely on the regime. In the old regime the Dress Allowance is exempt under Section 10(14)(i) read with Rule 2BB(1) of the Income-tax Rules, which exempts an allowance granted to meet the cost of the purchase or maintenance of a uniform worn on duty. The word maintenance is the point: the washing and upkeep the allowance now covers is squarely within the exemption. But the exemption is capped at the amount actually spent on the uniform and its upkeep, so it is not a blanket tax-free sum.

In the new tax regime, the default since the financial year 2023-24 under Section 115BAC , the uniform-allowance exemption is not among the few retained, so the Dress Allowance, and with it the old washing element, is fully taxable. An employee who wants the exemption for uniform upkeep must be in the old tax regime ; the old versus new tax regime article covers the choice, and the income tax for government employees article covers how allowances feed into the salary computation.

The 8th CPC outlook

The washing allowance has already been through the consolidation that defines it: the 7th Central Pay Commission subsumed it into the Dress Allowance in 2017, and the Dress Allowance itself has risen once since, by 25 per cent from 1 January 2024 when dearness allowance crossed 50 per cent. Whether the 8th Central Pay Commission keeps the Dress Allowance as it stands, revises the slabs, or restructures the uniform allowances again is not known, and no figure for the washing element or the Dress Allowance after the 8th CPC can be stated as fact until that commission reports and its recommendations are accepted. Until then the position is settled: for the notified uniform-wearing categories there is no separate Washing Allowance, only the consolidated Dress Allowance that now carries the upkeep it used to meet.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is the Washing Allowance still paid separately?

No. For the notified uniform-wearing categories the Washing Allowance is not paid as a separate allowance any more. The 7th Central Pay Commission subsumed it, along with seven other uniform-related allowances, into the single consolidated Dress Allowance with effect from 1 July 2017. The Dress Allowance is now meant to cover both buying and maintaining the uniform, so there is no separate monthly washing payment on top of it for those categories.

What was the Washing Allowance?

It was a small flat monthly allowance paid to a central government employee who was supplied with a uniform or livery, to meet the cost of laundering and keeping it clean. It compensated the upkeep of a supplied uniform, not the cost of buying it, and it was drawn mainly by Group C staff in uniformed roles such as multi-tasking staff, drivers, canteen and hospital attendants.

Which allowance replaced the Washing Allowance?

The consolidated Dress Allowance replaced it. Under the 7th Central Pay Commission the Dress Allowance folded in eight earlier uniform-related allowances, including the washing allowance, the kit-maintenance allowance and the shoe allowance, into one annual amount by category, from Rs. 6,250 to Rs. 25,000 a year at current rates. That single amount is intended to meet both the purchase and the upkeep of the uniform.

How much was the Washing Allowance?

It was a small flat monthly sum for the upkeep of a supplied uniform, well under a hundred rupees a month in the years before it was subsumed. The precise figure was set by the governing order of the day. Because it has been merged into the Dress Allowance since 1 July 2017, there is no current separate washing rate to quote; the relevant figure now is the Dress Allowance for the category.

Do nurses still get a washing allowance?

Not as a separate allowance. Nursing personnel draw the Dress Allowance at a monthly rate, Rs. 2,250 a month at the current enhanced rate, rather than one of the annual slabs, precisely because the washing and hygiene upkeep of a nurse’s uniform is higher. The washing element is built into that monthly Dress Allowance, so it is not paid on top as a distinct washing allowance.

Is the Washing Allowance taxable?

As it is now part of the Dress Allowance, its tax treatment follows that allowance. In the old regime the Dress Allowance is exempt under Section 10(14)(i) with Rule 2BB, but only up to the amount actually spent on buying and maintaining the uniform. In the new tax regime, the default, the uniform-allowance exemption is not retained, so the Dress Allowance, and with it the old washing element, is fully taxable.

Why was the Washing Allowance abolished as a separate allowance?

The 7th Central Pay Commission found a clutter of small, overlapping uniform allowances, the uniform, kit-maintenance, robe, shoe and washing allowances among them, each with its own rule and rate for one part of the same uniform. It recommended replacing the lot with a single Dress Allowance that covers both buying and maintaining the uniform, which is simpler to administer and removes the need for a separate monthly washing payment.

External references

References

Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission (November 2015), Chapter 8 (Allowances): review of the uniform-related allowances and the recommendation to consolidate them into a single Dress Allowance.
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 19051/1/2017-E.IV dated 2 August 2017 (Dress Allowance, effective 1 July 2017, listing the uniform, kit-maintenance, robe, shoe and washing allowances subsumed into it).
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Office Memorandum No. Z.28015/50/2017-N dated 31 August 2017 (Dress Allowance to nursing personnel at a monthly rate), and the order applying the 25 per cent increase from 1 January 2024.
Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2024-E.II(B): dearness allowance revised to 50 per cent with effect from 1 January 2024, triggering the 25 per cent rise in the fixed-rupee allowances including the Dress Allowance.
Income-tax Act 1961, Section 10(14)(i) read with Rule 2BB(1) of the Income-tax Rules (uniform purchase and maintenance exemption), and Section 115BAC (the new tax regime), on the taxability of the Dress Allowance.