The move, which will impact nearly 50 lakh employees and 58 lakh pensioners, is likely to be implemented from January 1.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared the Seventh Pay Commission that would hike the salaries and allowances for over one crore central government employees and pensioners by at least 23.5 per cent.

The move, which will impact nearly 50 lakh employees and 58 lakh pensioners, is likely to be implemented from January 1.

The meeting took place at the South Block this morning. According to reports, the Commission had recommended an average 23.55 percent increase in the salaries, allowances and pension of the government employees.

The recommendations submitted by the Empowered Committee of Secretaries, which was formed to look into recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, will benefit 4.8 million employees and 5.5 million pensioners.

The Centre had earlier in January set up a panel headed by Cabinet Secretary P. K. Sinha to process the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission, which is expected to change the remuneration of 47 lakh central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had in his Budget for 2016-17 provisioned Rs. 70,000 crore towards the Seventh Pay Commission, which is around 60 percent of the incremental expenditure on salaries.

The Commission's recommendations are due from January 1, 2016.

The implementation of new pay scales recommended by the Seventh Pay Commission is estimated to put an additional burden of Rs 1.02 lakh crore on the exchequer annually.

(This story originally appeared in the deccan Chronicle as may the case be)