A very big and relief news is coming for the Central Government employees and pensioners. Since the formation of the 8th Pay Commission, the eyes of about 55 lakh central employees and 69 lakh pensioners of the country are fixed on its every update. This Commission has been working continuously for the last eight months since the ‘Terms of Reference’ (ToR) was approved by the Government of India in October 2025. Now with the end of the June 15 deadline, the work of the Commission has gained momentum, while on the other hand, the situation regarding the next Dearness Allowance (DA) is also becoming clear. The next big announcement of Dearness Allowance (DA) may be made in September. The Central Government decides to increase the Dearness Allowance (DA) of its employees and Dearness Relief (DR) of pensioners twice a year. Earlier, there was an increase of 2 percent in DA which will be applicable from the first half of the year i.e. January 2026, after which the total DA of the employees has increased to the level of 60 percent. This increase was officially announced on 18 April 2026. According to Manjit Singh Patel, President of ‘All India NPS Employees Federation’, the increase in DA for the second half of the year (July to December 2026) is usually announced in the month of September, although in some special circumstances it has been delayed till October. How is your salary decided? Understand the complete mathematics of DA. To decide the dearness allowance of employees, the government needs solid economic data of at least two to three months. DA for the next six months cannot be decided based only on the initial trend of the month of July. The calculation of DA completely depends on the data of ‘All India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers’ (AICPI-IW) released by the Labor Bureau. The AICPI-IW figure for April 2026 had increased by 0.8 points to reach 149.9. Experts believe that the next DA to be implemented from July 2026 will mainly depend on the inflation data of May and June 2026, which will decide by how much the salary of the employees will increase. The deadline for submitting the memorandum is over, now the review phase will begin. The last date for submitting your demands and proposals (memorandum) before the 8th Pay Commission was June 15, 2026, which has now ended. The Commission had opened the memorandum submission window on its official website to prepare recommendations regarding the pay, allowances and pension structure of various categories of government officers, employees and pensioners. During this period, the employee unions have mainly put forward three big demands in the memorandums submitted to the Commission: Minimum basic pay and fitment factor: The biggest demand of the unions is that this time there should be a bumper increase in the minimum basic pay of the employees and the formula of fitment factor should be changed so that the starting salary can be respectable. Strict stance on pension: Employee organizations have demanded complete restoration of the old pension scheme (OPS) or an in-depth review of the structure of the current NPS and UPS to secure pension. Major reforms in allowances: Apart from this, major changes have been advocated in House Rent Allowance (HRA), risk pay, annual bonus, leave benefits and other financial benefits to service. Manjit Singh Patel said that with the completion of the process of submission of memorandum on June 15, the Commission has completed the first and most important phase of discussion with the stakeholders. Now the commission will study all the suggestions in depth and move towards preparing the final report. The 8th Pay Commission is now going to visit different states and union territories to directly communicate with the government employees of different states and understand their local problems. The Commission has released the official schedule of its next round of visits: Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): 22-23 June 2026 Bhubaneswar (Odisha): 6-7 July 2026 Kolkata (West Bengal): 9-10 July 2026 Let us tell you that earlier the Commission has completed important meetings with stakeholders in Delhi, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Hyderabad (Telangana) and Maharashtra. At the same time, on 26 April 2026, the Commission started its first formal talks with the employee unions of Uttarakhand.