8th Pay Commission update: Central government employees are eagerly awaiting the formation and the implementation of the 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC) and calculating how much salary hike they can expect when 8th CPC comes into effect. Notably in January this year the Union government announced the formation of the 8th Pay Commission but is yet to elect members or appoint a Chairman to head the commission while the rules and procedures have also not been formalized making it highly unlikely that 8th CPC recommendations will be implemented by January 2026 which was expected earlier. When will 8th Pay Commission be implemented? If we go by the implementation of previous pay commissions the government usually takes about 18 to 24 months to implement the recommendations of the commission. Thus its unlikely that 8th Pay Commission would be implemented before mid-2027 while reports suggest that the next CPC implementation might be pushed back to early 2028. As per a report by Kotak Institutional Equities 8th Pay Commission might be implemented in 2026 or early 2027. Currently 7th Pay Commission recommendations are in force and will remain so till December 2025. A new pay commission is constituted every 10 years which tenders suggestions for revision of salary and pension of central government employees and pensioners in wake of the prevailing economic scenario in the country. In July the finance ministry had said that the government is holding consultations with key stakeholders including states the Ministry of Defence the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Department of Personnel and Training to expedite the process for constituting the 8th Pay Commission. How much salary hike can employees expect? Akin to previous pay commissions the key to finding out the salary hike is the fitment factor which was 2.57 in the 7th Pay Commission and based on estimates will be 1.92 for the 8th Pay Commission. For example based on the fitment factor the new basic pay for Level 6 central employees will be Rs 67968 (current basic pay Rs 35400 x 1.92 = Rs 67968). So the basic pay of Level 6 central employees will increase to nearly Rs 68000 and various allowances will be added which will be the net monthly salary for this pay scale. Meanwhile according to Kotak Institutional Equities the 8th Pay Commission is likely to adopt a fitment factor of 1.8 which would raise the minimum basic salary of central government employees from Rs 18000 to Rs 30000 per month. On average central employees are expected to receive a 13% real salary hike it noted.