10 Important Allowances for Government Employees

Here we will define some important Allowances for Government Employees and know what is the meaning of Allowance.

Although the definition of allowances to the employees of any sector is the same, but in this article detailed information has been given about the allowances received by the government employees.

So let’s know what are the allowances that government employees get and what are the main types.

What is the meaning of Allowance

Allowance is a financial benefit provided by the government (central or state) to its employees in addition to the regular salary.

It is a fixed amount provided by the government to its employee to meet particular types of expenditure. These special types of expenditure are done in return for the services given by the government employee towards any public interest.

Similarly, there are many other types of allowances which are provided to government employees. Some allowances are part of the salary and some are compensatory.

7th Pay Commission and Allowances

As you know, a Pay Commission is set up by the Government of India to recommend changes in the salary structure of Central Government employees.

In this sequence, the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission were implemented in January 2016 and presently government employees are getting salary according to the recommendations of this Pay Commission.

The 7th Pay Commission recommended major changes in the allowances of Central Government employees. This commission recommended abolishing 53 out of 196 allowances available to central government employees and subsuming the other 36 in the existing allowances.

It is difficult to give information about all the allowances in one article, so in this article we are going to give brief information about some important allowances.

Important Allowances for Government Employees

Dearness Allowance (DA)

Inflation rate is increasing day by day. Despite several measures by the government, only partial success is achieved. Therefore, it becomes necessary for the government to protect its employees from the adverse effects of inflation.

Dearness Allowance is provided by the government to its employees and pensioners to reduce the effect of this inflation on everyday expenses.

Since, the rate of inflation generally keeps on increasing. Hence there is a need for a continuous increase in the effective wages of government employees to help them deal with this rising prices.

Dearness Allowance is calculated twice every year in January and July.

It is calculated as a percentage. As at present the rate of DA is 38%, then the DA received by a government employee will be 38% of his Basic Pay. In this way DA varies according to Basic Pay.

2001 has been fixed as the base year for calculation of DA.

For detailed information about DA you can read this article –
Dearness Allowance for Government Employees

Home Rent Allowance(HRA)

The HRA received by the government employees is a part of the gross salary.

This allowance is provided to government employees for the housing cost of living in that city where they are posted.

HRA is provided to those government employees who do not live in any departmental or government quarters. They live outside on rent.

Thus it meets the expenses of taking accommodation on rent for residential purposes of Government servants.

How much HRA to pay to a government employee is decided by the government on the basis of several different criteria like salary and city of residence.

In this way, the HRA received by all government employees is not a fixed amount but it is calculated on the basis of basic pay and city of residence.

The central government has divided Indian cities into three categories to calculate HRA – X category cities, Y category cities and Z category cities.

The 7th Pay Commission has amended the HRA available for these three categories of cities.

Cities with a population of more than 50 lakhs are included under category X and government employees living in these cities get a maximum HRA of 24 percent of their basic pay per month.

Cities with a population of 5 lakh to 50 lakh are included under the Y category and government employees living in these cities get a maximum HRA of 16 percent of their basic pay per month.

Z category cities are those which have a population of up to five lakhs and the government employees living in these cities get a maximum HRA per month of 16 percent of their basic pay.

For more details, read this article-
Home Rent Allowance for Central Government Employees and X Y Z Class Cities

Transport Allowance (TPTA Allowance)

After DA and HRA, Transport Allowance (TPTA Allowance) forms a significant part of the salary of central government employees.

TPTA is given to all employees working in Central Government services to cover the expenses incurred on commuting from residence to office and back.

This is the only allowance on which Dearness Allowance (DA) is given to Central employees.

TPTA is not available to all employees equally. It depends on the place of posting of the employee and his pay level. Here the place of posting means in which city the said employee is working.

Indian cities are classified into two categories to calculate TPTA.

Cities with Higher Transport Allowance – The number of these cities is 19. These cities include – Delhi, Greater Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Bengaluru, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Surat, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Kanpur, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Kozhikode and Patna.

Except for the above 19 cities, rest of the cities have been included in this category. The amount of TPTA here is less as compared to the 19 cities included in the first category.

Read this article for detailed information about TPTA-
Transport Allowance for Central Government Employees as per 7th CPC

Traveling Allowance (TA)

Traveling Allowance is a Compensatory Allowance and it is given to a government employee in return for the cost of the travel that he has done for some official purpose i.e. for some office work.

Such as traveling to attend an official meeting or for an audit of a company/firm.

There are many other works related to official purpose for which government employees have to travel.

TA is given not only for trips made within the country but also for any international travel. But this journey has also been done for official purpose.

If there is a transfer of a government employee from one place to another, then that employee has to go to the new place. TA is also provided for the expenses incurred in traveling for this purpose.

Not only this, when a government employee retires and goes to his home, then TA is also given for the travel expenses incurred therein.

TA is given to any employee according to his eligibility. TA is fixed separately for different pay levels.

On the basis of that pay level, according to the eligibility of the employee, he is given TA.

Read this article to know more about TA-
Travelling Allowance for Government Employees

Leave Travel Concession (LTC)

This facility or concession is given to Central Government employees for traveling to their homes or traveling to different parts of the country.

The employee has to apply for leave to get the benefit of LTC.

LTC is granted to the employee in lieu of home travel or travel to any part of the country during the same holiday.

An employee, after joining a government department, is allowed to travel to three home towns for the first two 4-year blocks and one pan-India trip.

After 8 years, the facility of Home Town LTC is available twice every four years.

If required, one of these two Home Town LTCs can be substituted with “All India Travel”.

LTC facility is not available for those employees whose wife works in Indian Railways. All India LTC is provided to them once in every four years.

Read this article to know more about LTC-
Leave Travel Concession for Government Employees: Important Rules

Children Education Allowance (CEA)

This allowance is provided by the government to central employees for their children’s schooling and hostel needs.

At present, this allowance is available only for the education of two children up to 12th standard.

Even if an employee has more than two children, this allowance will be given for only two children.

Under this allowance, the government employee gets Rs. 2,250/- per month as CEA and Rs. 6750/- per month as Hostel Subsidy.

According to DoPT, there will be an increase of 25% in both these allowances (CEA and Hostel Subsidy) when the dearness allowance on the revised pay structure is increased by 50 percent.

In the case of children with disabilities, the government employee gets double this allowance.

Before the 7th CPC, there was a very long process to claim this allowance, due to which the government employee could not get reimbursement on time.

But now to get this allowance, not many documents are required.

The certificate issued by the Head of Institute of the institution in which the child is studying is sufficient. In this certificate, the Head of Institute certifies that last year such a child studied in this class in this institution.

A similar certificate issued by the Head of Institute is sufficient for Hostel Subsidy also.

Daily Allowance

When a government employee goes somewhere for any office work, he has to spend for three things-

1. to travel to the destination
2. If the place is far away from the office, then to stay there and
3. to eat

Out of these three expenses, the first one becomes reimbursement in the form of TA. We have already told about this.

For the other two expenses, reimbursement is done in the form of Daily Allowance.

In this way, under Daily Allowance, Accomodation charges and Food Bill are given for reimbursement of expenses.

Briefcase Allowance

This allowance is available to certain categories of central government employees.

Under this allowance, a certain amount is provided to a government employee in lieu of buying a Briefcase/official bag/ladies purse.

It is not available to government employees below 4200 Grade Pay. 4200 Grade Pay employees get Rs 3500 under this allowance. Its maximum limit is Rs. 10000/- is Rs.

Briefcase Allowance is provided once in three years.

Residential Newspaper Allowance

This allowance is provided to the central government employee in lieu of getting a newspaper or magazine at his home.

Earlier, the officer had to pay the bill for reimbursement of the cost of getting newspaper at home.

But this arrangement came to an end after an order was issued by the Ministry of Finance in April 2018.

Now an officer has to fill a form for this and certify and submit it to their respective office. After this the newspaper bill gets reimbursed to that officer.

Uniform Allowance

This allowance is given to such government employees who have to work wearing some kind of uniform at the work place.

In some departments, such government employees also get Initial Equipment Allowance. It is available when that employee joins such department for the first time.

After that he gets a renewal grant under this allowance every year.

In some departments, eligible employees get only initial grant for Uniform Allowance.

Apart from the above, there are many other allowances which are available to central government employees, such as Court Allowance, Desk Allowance, Diet Allowance, Electricity Allowance, Internet Allowance, Mobile Phone Allowance, Command Allowance, Study Allowance etc.

As already mentioned in this article, central government employees get 196 types of allowances. But in this article, we have given information only about some important allowances.

Conclusion

The central government provides some allowances to its employees to compensate for the daily expenses. The number of these allowances is 196.

But all these allowances are not provided to the employees of all the departments.

These are only some of the allowances that are available to all central employees, such as Dearness Allowance, Traveling Allowance, Transport Allowance, Leave Travel Concession, Home Rent Allowance etc.

We have given brief information about these major Allowances in the above article.

For detailed information about these, you can read the articles related to these Allowances on our website.

FAQs related to Allowances for Government Employees

Related posts:

Leave Travel Concession Rules: 7th CPC LTC Rules for Govt Employees Dearness Allowance for Government Employees: How to Calculate DA in Salary Transport Allowance for Central Government Employees: What’s New under the 7th CPC Children Education Allowance Form PDF Download