The 8th pay commission is set to meet stakeholders, unions, employee groups and representatives across states in June 2026. This is being undertaken as part of the panel’s process to gather feedback from related parties on allowances, pay hikes, salary structure, and other elements.
Constituted every 10 years, the pay commissions are expected to make significant decisions impacting salaries of central government employees and pensioners, including railways and defence staff and personnel. As part of this stakeholder consultation process, it opened formal memorandum submissions in March and held meetings with employee representatives in April and May.
Chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, the commission includes Pankaj Jain, former IAS, as Member-Secretary, and Professor Pulak Ghosh, tenured Professor of Finance, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, as a Member of the Commission. It is expected to make its final recommendations sometime in 2027.
8th CPC: Check full list of cities with visits in June, July
In official notices, the panel invited interested stakeholders, including central government organisations / institutions and unions / associations desirous of interacting with the Commission at the following cities:
- The 8th CPC will visit Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir from 1-4 June 2026 (Monday-Thursday) to hold discussions with concerned stakeholders.
- The 8th CPC will visit the UT of Ladakh on 8 June 2026 (Monday) to hold discussions with concerned stakeholders.
- The 8th CPC will visit Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh from 22-23 June (Monday and Tuesday) to hold discussions with concerned stakeholders. Appointment requests must be completed on or before 10 June.
- The 8th CPC will visit Bhubaneshwar, Odisha, from 6-7 July (Monday and Tuesday) to hold discussions with concerned stakeholders. Appointment requests must be completed on or before 15 June.
- It has stated that separate meetings will be scheduled in other Uttar Pradesh cities, at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and at cities in other states and union territories (UTs) in due course.
- “Please note that the Commission shall be holding separate meetings at cities in other States/ Union Territories in due course,” it stated.
Prior to this, it has already held consultations for unions and organisations under the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Defence in Delhi on 13 and 14 May; and with concerned stakeholders in Hyderabad, Telangana on 18-19 May.
Around 50 lakh central government employees and around 65 lakh retired central government pensioners, including defence personnel and retirees will be impacted by the panel’s decisions.
Deadline to submit memorandums, timeline
Notably, the commission has invited suggestions and memorandums till 31 May after opening formal memorandum submissions in March. To reach consensus, it will gather inputs, analyse the data and then decide allowances, pension formula and salary structures for the relevant employee and retiree groups.
The panel this month also invited applications from candidates for full-time and part-time consultant roles on a one-year contractual basis, “to make recommendations related to emolument structure of different categories of officers, employees and on pensions”.
As per plan, the CPC is expected to put forward its final suggestions around 18 months after being constituted on 3 November 2025. This means that the earliest we could get recommendations is February 2027. Further, looking at past trends, once the pay commission’s recommendations are made, roll out takes another two to three years to complete. This means that hikes announced in 2027, may only be fully implemented by 2029 or 2030.
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