The 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC) held its first meetings with employee representatives last week and discussions have centred around demands ranging from annual increment levels, promotion tenures, and withdrawal of the National Pension Scheme (), according to a report by the Financial Express.
Citing information from Shiv Gopal Mishra, Secretary, National Council (Staff Side) of the Joint Consultative Machinery (NC-JCM), the report said the group met with the Standing Committee and presented their demands on 28 April 2026.
What were demands made during the meeting?
- The key demand from employee representatives is for increase in minimum pay from ₹18,000 to ₹69,000 to match cost-of-living expenses, according to the report. This would require a fitment factor or 3.83 times to reflect the demanded salary and scale revisions, it added.
- Another key demand is for faster promotions every five years to beat stagnation (plus additional two promotions on staff side to reward career progression), as per the report. Further they also asked for annual increment to be increased from 3% of basic pay to 6%.
- The list of demands also seeks to expand all allowances — especially Children’s Education Allowance (CEA), House Rent Allowance (), and risk allowance — by 3x.
- They also seek to have the allowances linked to Dearness Allowance (), and benefits such as interest-free advances, and loans for festivals and vehicles.
- For leaves, the representatives have demanded encashment of up to 600 days, plus addition of benefits such as menstrual leave, parent care leave and paternity leave.
- For pension, staff have demanded that NPS be scrapped and the old non-contributory Unified Pension Scheme () be restored. The reasoning is that staff had previously foregone provident fund benefits to opt for pensions.
- There is also a demand on behalf of retirees, which seeks to raise concern over introduction of (OROP) for civilian employees. They have demanded periodic revision of pensions, restoration of commuted pension after 11 years, and call for more meetings, the report added.
- On the discussion process itself, demand has been made for more meetings and field visits to remote locations to better understand working conditions before the panel’s final recommendations are made.
Notably, the 8th CPC in a statement last week also said that it will hold more meetings in the national capital and in other states and union territories “in due course” over the next months.
About the 8th Central Pay Commission
Constituted by the Centre every 10 years to revise the allowances, pay and pensions of its employees, are responsible for decisions on contributions, retirement benefits and government spending. The 8th CPC is thus also set to make big decisions on salary hikes, dearness allowance, fitment factor and other allowances for central government employees.
Prime Minister Narendra appointed the 8th CPC in January 2025, following which its Terms of Reference (ToR) were issued in November. Since then, there has been much speculation over its impending decisions.
Who benefits from 8th CPC decisions?
As many as 50 lakh central government , including defence personnel, and around 65 lakh retired central government pensioners, including defence retirees will be impacted by the decisions. They could see basic salary rise to ₹51,480 from ₹18,000. Notably, there are 18 levels of employees, and the individual hikes will depend on the level of the employee or pensioner as basic pay of these employees differs from level to level.
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