Union Budget 2025 is coming soon and, for this, it is expected that central government employees and pensioners also have been looking forward to the Eighth Pay Commission with the anticipation of their expectations materializing. The Eighth Pay Commission is expected to be formed in response to their appeal in the presence of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The budget for the financial year 2025-26 will be 1st of February 2025.
8th Pay Commission Update
First, before the budget every year, the Ministry of Finance asks various sectors to recommend their suggestions based only on public recommendations. The employees of private and public sectors, who number over a billion, are served by these groups.
Recently trade union representatives met the Finance Minister, Sitharaman. During the traditional pre-budget meeting, they raised demands. That is why representative trade unions want the Eighth Pay Commission, which would affect approximately 50 lakh employees and 67 lakh pensioners.
An issue raised in the Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting
Point Raised in Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting Swadesh Dev Roy, CITU (Center of Indian Trade Unions) National Secretary, raised the issue during the pre-budget consultation that there should be the establishment of new pay commission. The leadership of the union has demanded immediate pay commission as it is more than 10 years since the seventh pay commission was formed.
It is to be mentioned that the tenure of the Seventh Pay Commission is going to be culminated by December 2025. The Seventh Pay Commission was set up on 28 February 2014. It gave its report in January 2016, and the government started implementing its recommendation from that date.
Budget 2025 Update
Estimates suggest that the new pay commission will start from January 1, 2026. According to past trends, the fourth, fifth and sixth pay commissions have completed ten years each. Continuing the trend, the current pay commission will complete on December 31, 2025.
Various trade unions have been demanding the formation of the Eighth Pay Commission for a long period of time. Last month, the National Council (Employee Side) of the Joint Joint Consultative Machinery (NC-JCM) had even written to the Union Cabinet Secretary for an ‘urgent’ formation of a new Pay Commission.
In his letter on December 3, the employee side also pointed out that it was more than 9 years since the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission were implemented. Thus, the next pay and pension revision is due for effect from January 1, 2026.
In this note, Shiv Gopal Mishra, Secretary of the NC JCM, tried to draw attention to a 10 years cycle that is established since the Fourth Pay Commission in 1986 with the revision of salaries, allowances, pensions, and other benefits of central government employees.
other demands raised by the trade unions in the pre-budget meeting
Almost all other remaining demands were made by the trade unions in the meeting with Finance Minister through a press statement issued by the trade unions. Other demands include the rise in minimum EPFO pension to Rs 5,000 per month. There were even demands for higher tax on richer people in the budget for the year 2025-26. In the same way, the matter of increase in income-tax exemption limit to Rs 10 lakh every year, among gig workers a social security scheme be introduced, and the return of the old pension scheme for government servants have been made.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, SP Tiwari, TUCC national general secretary, said that the unions called on the government not to privatize or corporatize PSUs. It also suggested imposing a 2% additional tax on super-rich people so as to raise social security funds for informal workforce. He also urged the extension of social security benefits to farm laborers and fixation of a minimum wage for such workers.
Pawan Kumar, Northern Region Organising Secretary of Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), demanded increase in minimum pension under EPS-95 from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per month as a first step, which would later be linked to VDA (variable dearness allowance).
He also advocated raising the income tax exemption limit to Rs 10 lakh and exempting pension income from tax. Kumar has made a call for the immediate formation of the Eighth Pay Commission for government employees, with effect from the revisions desired in their pay structure.
