7th Pay Commission allowances: Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union Cabinet gave clearance to the allowances and HRA recommended by the 7th Pay Commission panel on Wednesday bringing joy to about 48 lakh government employees across the country. Centre in a statement said, “While increasing the rate of allowances affecting the central government employees, especially the Defence, CAPF and Coast Guard personnel, the staff of Railways, Postal department and nursing staff, the total number of allowances have been rationalised from 197 to 128.” A basic 7th CPC salary calculator shows Centre has divided cities in three different categories for HRA: X, Y and Z. Employees who fall in X category will get 24% HRA, in Y will get 16% HRA and the ones who fall in the Z category will be given 8% HRA. This amount will be added to your basic salary. So while it is confirmed that you will be getting a hike in pay, there’s still a confusion regarding the category in which you fall:

Here’s the full list of cities as per their categories:

Category X: Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune.

Category Y: Agra, Ajmer, Allahabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Asansol, Aurangabad, Bareilly, Belgaum, Bhavnagar, Bhiwandi, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Jharkhand, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Dehradun, Dhanbad, Durg-Bhilai, Durgapur, Erode, Faridabad, Firozabad, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Gulbarga, Guntur, Delhi, Guwahati, Gwalior, Hubli-Dharwad, Indore, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Jammu, Jamnagar, Jamshedpur, Jhansi, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Kannur, Kakinad Education, Kochi, Kottayam, Kolhapur, Kollam, Kota, Kozhikode, Kurnool, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Madurai, Malappuram, Malegaon, Mangalore, Meerut, Moradabad, Mysore, Nagpur, Nashik, Nllur, Noida, Delhi, Pondicherry, Raipur, Rajkot, Rajahmundry, Ranchi, Rourkela, Salem, Sangli, Siliguri, Solapur, Srinagar, Surat, Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Thrissur, Tiruchirapalli, Tiruppur, Ujjain, Vadodara, Varanasi, Vasai-Virar City, Vijaywa Ha, Visakhapatnam, Warangal.

Category Z: All others.

These new rates of allowances will come into effect from July 1, 2017. These changes are based on the suggestions made by the Committee on Allowances (CoA) set up by the Cabinet on 29th June 2016.