Justice Ranjana Desai appointed as Chairperson of the 8th Pay Commission

The Central Cabinet approved the terms of reference of the 8th Pay Commission on 28 October 2025. Under this, Justice Ranjana Desai has been appointed as the Chairperson of the 8th Pay Commission, Professor Pulak Ghosh of IIM Bangalore as a Member, and Pankaj Jain, Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, as Member-Secretary.

• The Central Government has appointed Justice Ranjana Desai as the Chairperson of the 8th Pay Commission, along with the announcement of two members. Among them, Professor Pulak Ghosh of IIM Bangalore has been appointed as a Member and Pankaj Jain, Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, as Member-Secretary.
• The Cabinet approved the terms of reference of the 8th Pay Commission on 28 October 2025. This will benefit 5 million central government employees and 6.9 million pensioners, and it will also impact the salaries of state government employees.

About Justice Ranjana Desai

• Retired Supreme Court Judge Desai was earlier appointed as the Chairperson of the Delimitation Commission in 2020, and later in 2022, as the head of the Uttarakhand Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Committee. In February 2025, she was also appointed as the head of the Gujarat UCC Commission.
• In a press note issued after the Cabinet meeting on 28 October 2025, it was stated that the 8th Pay Commission will submit its report in about 18 months. The note mentioned, “Generally, the recommendations of the Pay Commissions are implemented at an interval of every ten years.
• As per this trend, the recommendations of the 8th Central Pay Commission are expected to come into effect from 01.01.2026 (1 January 2026).”

Seventh Pay Commission

• The 7th Pay Commission was also implemented in July 2016, but employees were paid arrears for the six-month period starting from January 2016.
• At that time, the panel had recommended a fitment factor of 2.57. Although this meant that the basic pay and pension were multiplied by 2.57, the actual increase was less – 23.5% – because the Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief were reset to zero.
• This time too, DA and DR – which currently stand at 58% of basic pay – will reset to zero after the implementation of the 8th Pay Commission.

About India’s Pay Commissions

• 1 May 1946 – 1947 – Sir Srinivas Varadachari, Chairperson. It focused on rationalizing the pay structure and introduced the concept of ‘living wage.’
• 2 August 1957 – 1959 – J. L. Mehra, Chairperson.
• 3 April 1970 – March 1973 – Raghubir Dayal, Chairperson. It aimed to address pay disparities between the public and private sectors.
• 4 September 1983 – December 1986 – P. N. Singhal, Chairperson. It recommended a minimum pay of ₹750 per month and introduced a performance-based pay structure.
• 5 April 1994 – January 1997 – Justice S. Ratnavel Pandian, Chairperson. It recommended reducing the number of pay scales from 51 to 34 and modernizing government offices.
• 6 October 2006 – March 2008 – Justice B. N. Srikrishna, Chairperson. It introduced running pay bands and grade pay to remove stagnation.
• 7 February 2014 – November 2016 – A. K. Mathur, Chairperson. It raised the minimum pay to ₹18,000 and introduced a new pay matrix.