Eighth Central Pay Commission: Pulak Ghosh, IIM Bangalore Professor and EAC Member

8th Central Pay Commission to Hold Consultations in Telangana, Ladakh, and Jammu & Kashmir

The 8th Central Pay Commission (CPC) has scheduled visits to Telangana, Ladakh, and Jammu & Kashmir in May and June for consultations with employee representatives. The first visit will take place from 18-19 May in Hyderabad, Telangana, followed by a visit to Srinagar, Jammu & Kashmir from 1-4 June. The commission will then visit Ladakh on 8 June.

In addition to these visits, the 8th CPC has announced that separate meetings will be held in Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, and Delhi, as well as in cities across other states and union territories, which will be announced "in due course" over the next few months.

The 8th CPC was constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is tasked with making key decisions on salary hikes and fitment factors, which will determine the updated compensation for central government employees and pensioners.

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Meet the Part-Time Member of the 8th CPC

Pulak Ghosh, a tenured Professor of Finance, Decision Sciences, and Public Policy at IIM Bangalore, serves as a part-time member of the 8th CPC. Ghosh is a leading Tech Statistician-Economist who works at the intersection of artificial intelligence, big data, finance, and public policy. His research spans financial intermediaries, household finance, development finance, and sustainability/ESG.

Ghosh has held several key policy and advisory roles, including Senior Fellow at NITI Aayog, Member of the National Statistics Commission, Chairman of SEBI's Committee on AI in Trading, and advisory positions with RBI Academy, NSE, and the UN Global Pulse (Big Data initiative). He played a pivotal role in the 2018 employment report using EPFO data and in shaping the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme in 2019.

Ghosh has published extensively in top international journals, including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and Biometrika. His work has been cited by the World Bank, Government of India, RBI, and NITI Aayog. He is also a recipient of several prestigious national and international awards in finance, statistics, and econometrics.

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Composition of the 8th CPC

The 8th CPC is the eighth such committee constituted by the central government since Independence. It is chaired by Former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and includes Professor Pulak Ghosh, a tenured Professor of Finance, as a member of the commission, and Pankaj Jain, a former IAS officer, as Member-Secretary.

Decision-Making Process of the 8th CPC

The Pay Commission is a government panel established every 10 years to revise pay, allowances, and pensions of central government employees and retired former servicemen. The commission gathers views and inputs from employee unions, labour groups, ministries, pension bodies, and other similar stakeholders, which are then analyzed to decide allowances, pension formulas, and salary structures for relevant employee and retiree groups.

The 8th CPC has extended its deadline for stakeholders to submit their memorandum of suggestions ahead of the panel's recommendations. In an official statement last week, the commission invited representatives of central government employees to submit their suggestions and memorandums and extended the date to the latest by 31 May 2026. The process for submissions had begun on 5 March 2026, with an earlier deadline on 30 April.