7th Pay Commission Latest News Today: Special Allowances of up to Rs 10,000 Approved For Soldiers

After months of deliberations, the Defence Ministry has approved a list of items which will have to be purchased by each soldier from an annual clothing allowance of Rs 10,000 recommended by the 7th Central Pay Commission in lieu of personnel clothing.

7th Pay Commission Latest News: At a time when thousands of Central Government employees are waiting for a hike in minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission or 7th CPC, the soldiers of the country have got a reason to smile. After months of deliberations, the Defence Ministry has approved a list of items which will have to be purchased by each soldier from an annual clothing allowance of Rs 10,000 recommended by the 7th Central Pay Commission in lieu of personnel clothing.

The Rs 10,000 clothing allowance recommended by the 7th CPC and approved by the Defence Ministry can be used by soldiers and Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) to procure clothing items, including summer uniform, shirt angola, woollen jersey, mufti dress and accoutrements like lanyard, belt, badges, ribbons, chevron and formation sign.

The approval to the 7th Pay Commission recommendation for clothing allowance of soldiers was given by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday. Meanwhile, all other clothing items, including combat dress, physical fitness training kit as also the newly-introduced improved physical training (PT) shoes, will continue to be issued to all soldiers from the military stores as authorised items. The items which will be supplied to the soldiers from military stores also include blankets, ground sheets, raincoats, mosquito nets etc. Also, the recruits will continue to get additional dresses during recruitment training as before.

According to sources, special clothing items that are authorised to soldiers when deployed at Siachen, super high-altitude and extreme cold climate areas will be issued as per present procedures.

The Seventh Pay Commission had recommended the clothing allowance based on the feedback from soldiers regarding quality and inappropriate fitting of dresses provided to them. It was, hence, decided that provision of dress material and allowing soldiers to get it stitched as per their individual fitment would be a better option, the sources said.

Meanwhile, PM Narendra Modi is likely to announce the hike in minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission on August 15.

The last what we heard from the government was in March this year when Minister of State in Finance, P Radhakrishnan dashed the hope of 48 lakh employees who have been demanding higher minimum pay. He informed Rajya Sabha that it was not considering hiking minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. This