7th CPC - Hospital Patient Care Allowance In The Report Of Committee

Hospital Patient Care Allowance/Patient Care Allowance | Report of Committee | 7th Pay commission

Existing Provisions: Patient Care Allowance (PCA) is admissible to Group ₹C‟ and „D‟ (nonMinisterial) employees excluding nursing personnel working in the health care delivery institutions/establishments (other than hospitals) with less than 30 beds, subject to the condition that no Night Weightage Allowance and Risk Allowance will be admissible to these employees. Similarly placed employees working in hospitals are eligible for Hospital Patient Care Allowance (HPCA). Hospital Patient Care Allowance@ ₹2,100 pm for Group ₹C‟ staff and ₹2,085 pm for Group ₹D‟ Staff.

Recommendations of 7th CPC: The 7th CPC has recommended that this allowance shall be paid as per Cell R1H3 of the newly proposed Risk and Hardship Matrix @₹5,300/- pm for level 9 and above and @₹4,100/- pm upto level 8. It has also been recommended that HPCA / PCA should be admissible to only those employees who come in continuous and routine contact with the patients. The amount of allowance will increase by 25% each time DA rises by 50%.

Demands:

I. National Council (Staff Side), JCM: The exclusion of the Ministerial Staff by the 7th CPC is without substantive reason as the job of the Ministerial staff working on the premises of the Hospitals involves risk. Therefore, this allowance should continue to be paid to Ministerial staff working in Hospitals.

II. M/o Health & FW: Doctors may be granted Risk & Hardship Allowance as per cell R1H2 of Risk & Hardship Matrix and Nursing Personnel may be granted as per rates of R1H3 of the matrix.

Analysis and Recommendations of the Committee:

The Committee notes that Doctors are granted NPA and the Nurses get Nursing Allowance. The NPA will be paid @20% of the Basic Pay and the Nursing Allowance, which was not recommended to be increased by the 7th CPC, is being recommended to be increased by 1.5 by the Committee. As such, demands for a separate Risk & Hardship Allowance for Doctors and Nurses may not be accepted.

As regards grant of HPCA / PCA to ministerial staff working on hospital premises, the Committee is of the view that working on hospital premises does involve an element of risk. The recommendations of the 7th CPC on HPCA/ PCA may, therefore, be modified to the extent that these allowances, at present admissible to ministerial staff working in hospital premises, will not be discontinued and be paid to them as per R1H3 of the Risk & Hardship Matrix.

The additional financial implication on account of the changes proposed by the Committee is estimated to be ₹ 30 crore per annum and will benefit approximately 15000 employees.