New Delhi, (IANS) : The Central government employees will get fatter paychecks starting from August salaries, according to a gazette notification issued by central government on the Seventh Finance Commission report here on Tuesday.

The central government has decided to implement the seventh pay panel recommendations on salary and pension hike for its employees with effect from January 1, 2016, according to the gazette.

The pay panel outlay is pegged at Rs 1.02 lakh crore (or over $15 billion) from the government treasury during the current fiscal year.

The 16 per cent pay hike and 24 per cent increase in pension, with arrears from January this year, will affect 47 lakh serving central government employees and 53 lakh pensioners.

With regards to the allowances, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley late last month said till a final decision was taken by a panel headed by the Finance Secretary, all existing perks will be paid at the “existing rates”.

The notification said as regards to the annual increment, instead of the earlier July 1, now there will be two dates of January 1 and July 1.

In a year the employee will be entitled for increment at one of these dates depending on his date of appointment, etc.

The minimum monthly salary of a central government employee has been fixed at Rs 18,000 from earlier Rs 7,000.

The maximum will now be Rs 2.5 lakh for the Cabinet Secretary, which is more than double the current pay of Rs 90,000 a month for the country’s top bureaucrat.

For other officers in the top scale — secretary or equivalent — the monthly salary will now be around Rs 2,25,000.