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| Imagery representation of News Seventh Pay Commission to propose higher HRA |
New Delhi: The Seventh Pay Commission is likely to propose to increase
House Rent Allowance (HRA) of central government employees, besides
their basic salaries.
By giving House Rent Allowance hikes, the Pay Commission is likely to
seek to encourage property owners to rent out their properties, reduce
the shortage of dwellings and to provide ‘housing for all central
government employees’.
Besides the basic salary, a large portion of central government
employees’ salary is the House Rent Allowance; some changes will be made
in that category this time.
Instead of the existing three areas for house rent, four are likely to
be created. ‘X’ class cities Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi,
Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, where employees will get 40 percent
of their basic salary as House Rent Allowance (HRA), increasing from
the existing 30 percent.
Employees posted at ‘Y’ class cities covers near about 90 stations, will
receive 30 percent of basic salary, instead of the existing 20 percent.
A new area will be opened for the district towns; the central government
employees will get 20 percent of their basic salary as House Rent
Allowance (HRA) there.
In other areas, the house rent allowance will be 10 percent of basic,
which is the existing rate of House Rent Allowance (HRA) of ‘Z’ class
cities.
The existing qualifying threshold of population for HRA classification
is 50 lakh and above for X, 5-50 lakh for Y and below 5 lakh for Z class
cities.
However, the central government’s salary bill will rise by 9.56% to Rs
1,00,619 crore with the implementation of the recommendations of the
Seventh Pay Commission, according to a statement tabled in Parliament by
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on August 12.
