7th Pay Commission: Defence personnel to get enhanced pay from May

Govt had last week raised their pay package after cabinet accepted certain demands of 3 services

The Army, Navy and Indian Air Force personnel are all set to get enhanced pay according to the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission from the current month.

The government had last week the enhanced their pay package after the Union cabinet accepted certain demands of the the three services including restoring an earlier system of disbursing disability pension.

The three services issued general instructions separately to disburse the revised pay as well as the arrears in May's salary.

"Instructions have been issued for giving revised pay in the current month's salary," official sources said.

The revised pay will be given with effect from January 2016, as recommended by the 7th Pay Commission. The panel's recommendations were not implemented for the three services after they raised the issue of certain anomalies.

Heeding their other major demand, the government last week decided to continue with an earlier system of disbursing disability pension and not adopt a new regime as recommended by the 7th pay commission.

The armed forces have been pressing for reverting to the percentage-based regime for calculating disability pension and were strongly opposed to the slab-based system conceived by the pay panel.

Some other alleged "anomalies" raised by the armed forces, including the issue of Non-Functional Upgrade (NFU), are yet to be addressed.

There has been a demand for NFU in the armed forces.

Under the NFU scheme, officers in central group A category get automatic time-bound pay promotions. Pay hike under NFU scheme are independent of organisational requirements and vacancy.