(FE)
Over 4.9 million central government employees will likely start receiving revised allowances, including for house rents (HRA), from July, 18 months after their pays were hiked as per the Seventh Pay Commission’s (SPC) award. While the payout will help consumption — private consumption growth had decelerated a bit in the final quarter of last fiscal and analysts see an incipient pick-up in spending — as the Reserve Bank of India observed in its second bimonthly monetary policy statement for FY18 on Wednesday, it could pose an upside risk to inflation. The RBI has projected retail inflation to be 2-3.5% in the first half and 3.5-4.5% in the second half of the year. The delay in disbursal of the revised allowances has saved the exchequer rs 2,200 crore a month or Rs 40,000 crore cumulatively since January 1, 2016, but the government might partly compensate employees for this with a more generous HRA than recommended by the panel, say sources.
