Deputation Allowance: Rates, Ceilings and the Option of Pay Scale

Deputation allowance rates under the 7th CPC

The present rates come from DoPT's order of 24 November 2017, which took effect from 1 July 2017. A central government employee appointed on deputation to an ex-cadre post, whether in another ministry, a union territory, a statutory body or a PSU, is paid deputation (duty) allowance on top of the basic pay of the parent cadre. If the deputation is in the same station, the rate is 5 percent of basic pay. If it involves a change of station, the rate is 10 percent.

Each rate has a monthly ceiling. In 2017 the ceilings were Rs 4,500 for the same station and Rs 9,000 for a change of station, which was a little more than double the 6th CPC figures. The order also said the ceilings would rise by 25 percent each time dearness allowance went up by 50 percent. DA crossed 50 percent on 1 January 2024, and departments listed deputation allowance among the allowances enhanced from that date. That puts the ceilings at Rs 5,625 and Rs 11,250. If your office is still applying the 2017 figures, ask for the order that revised them in your ministry.

Same station is read practically: if you did not have to shift your home, because the borrowing office is in the same city or urban area, you get the lower rate. Moving from Delhi to Ghaziabad is a common grey area. The answer usually turns on whether a transfer TA and a change of headquarters were involved, so look at your joining order before you argue.

Rates and ceilings at a glance

The orders that govern pay on deputation

The option of pay scale: allowance or the deputation post's pay

Every deputationist faces the same question in the first weeks: keep your parent cadre basic pay and add the deputation allowance, or take pay in the level of the deputation post. Neither is always better. The answer depends on the gap between the two levels, how long you expect to stay, and what will happen in your parent cadre while you are away.

If you keep parent pay, your annual increments and any promotion or MACP in the parent cadre continue to raise your basic pay, and the allowance is worked on that basic. DA and HRA are calculated on basic pay; the allowance is a flat addition and does not attract DA. If you take the deputation post's pay, your basic pay is fixed in that level under the pay rules applicable to the post, and DA and HRA follow the higher figure if it is higher.

The option is normally asked for at joining, and the terms letter usually gives a short window, often a month. After that, offices treat it as final except in specific situations such as a promotion or financial upgradation in the parent cadre, or a general pay revision. If you were never asked for an option, or the office fixed your pay without one, write and ask for the chance to exercise it now with effect from joining.

Two smaller points are often missed. First, if you were drawing personal pay in the parent cadre, for instance to protect pay after an earlier fixation, it continues alongside basic pay and allowance under the parent pay option, but usually disappears if you take the deputation post's pay. Second, HRA follows the station where you actually serve on deputation, so a move from a smaller city to Delhi or Mumbai raises HRA under either option. Put both into your comparison before deciding.

How the Rs 2,25,000 cap and the ceilings bite at senior levels

At junior and middle levels, the percentage usually decides the amount. At senior levels, the ceilings take over. A Level 13 officer with basic pay of Rs 1,30,600 who moves station would get 10 percent, Rs 13,060, but the ceiling of Rs 11,250 cuts it down.

Higher up, the overall cap matters more. Take an officer at Level 15 drawing Rs 2,17,600. Ten percent would be Rs 21,760 and the ceiling would allow Rs 11,250, but basic pay plus allowance cannot cross Rs 2,25,000, so the allowance payable is only Rs 7,400. A doctor drawing non-practising allowance gets a slightly higher cap of Rs 2,37,500 on basic pay, NPA and allowance together.

These caps are often misapplied in both directions. Some offices forget the 2024 revision and keep the Rs 9,000 ceiling. Others apply the 2024 ceiling but forget the overall cap, leading to an overpayment that is later recovered. Check your pay slip against the table above.

Deciding and recording your option

Do this before the window in your terms letter closes.

1. Get the terms in writing

   Ask the borrowing office for the deputation terms letter, which should state the post, its level, the station and the option window. Without it you cannot calculate anything properly.

2. Work out both options for the whole expected tenure

   Use your parent basic pay and next increment date for one column, and the likely fixation in the deputation post for the other. Add DA and HRA to each. Project at least three years, or the full tenure if shorter.

3. Factor in what will happen back home

   Check whether a DPC, MACP or cadre restructuring is due in your parent cadre. A promotion there usually favours the parent pay option, because it raises both basic pay and allowance.

4. Write the option clearly

   Name the option, the date from which it applies, and any assumption you relied on, such as the absence of a pending promotion. Keep a dated, acknowledged copy.

5. Recheck after every change

   On a parent cadre promotion, MACP, or a pay revision order, write and ask whether a fresh option is allowed and for the allowance or pay to be recalculated. Do it within weeks, not at the end of the tenure.

Advocate B.K. Singh's first tip comes from cases where the option was given in a hurry on the first day: before signing, write the two columns out for the full tenure, including any promotion likely in the parent cadre. The difference over three years is often larger than people expect, and the office will rarely reopen a recorded option later.

Promotion, MACP or pay revision in the parent cadre while you are away

If your juniors in the parent cadre are promoted while you are on deputation, you may receive a proforma promotion under the next-below rule. The 2017 order deals with this: where the proforma promotion is to a level not above the level of the deputation post, the allowance is paid on the promoted basic pay if you opt for it. Many deputationists never ask, and the borrowing office never tells them.

MACP upgradations work in the same way, because they raise your basic pay in the parent cadre. Ask the parent office to issue the order and send it to the borrowing office, and then ask the borrowing office to refix. The two offices often wait for each other, so put both in copy.

For how a pay fixation statement should look and how to check it, see our guides on checking a pay fixation statement and pay matrix levels and cells. Where the option on promotion itself is in issue, fixation from the promotion date or the increment date explains that separate choice.

Foreign service allowance and contributions

Deputation to a body that is not part of the central government, such as a PSU, an autonomous body, a society or a state undertaking, is called foreign service. The allowance paid there is the same deputation (duty) allowance, though older papers sometimes call it foreign service allowance. The rates, ceilings and option are the same.

The difference is in who pays what. Under the Fundamental Rules on foreign service, the borrowing organisation must pay leave salary contribution and pension contribution to the government for the period you serve it, or, for NPS subscribers, the employer's NPS contribution. If these are not paid, your leave account and pension can be affected later, and the issue usually surfaces only when your pension papers are being prepared.

Advocate B.K. Singh's second tip is to ask, before the deputation ends, for a written statement from the borrowing body showing that the contributions for your entire tenure were paid, with dates and challan details, and to place a copy in your service book. It takes one letter now. Without it, a retiree may spend months chasing a PSU that has since been merged or wound up.

CDTA under the Central Staffing Scheme

Officers of the All India Services and organised Group A services who come to the Central Secretariat under the Central Staffing Scheme as Under Secretary, Deputy Secretary or Director receive the Central (Deputation on Tenure) Allowance instead of the ordinary deputation allowance. It is 10 percent of basic pay, with a ceiling that was Rs 9,000 and now rises by 25 percent for each 50 percent rise in DA, by DoPT's order of 4 June 2025.

CDTA disputes are usually about the start date of the revised ceiling or about officers who moved from a non-scheme post to a scheme post mid-tenure. Write to the DoPT establishment wing or your administrative ministry with the dates of joining and the order sanctioning CDTA. These are almost always settled at the departmental level.

Tenure, extension and the months after the tenure ends

Deputation is for a fixed tenure, usually three years to begin with, and can be extended in steps with the approvals required by the DoPT orders of 17 June 2010 and 17 February 2016. The allowance is tied to that sanctioned tenure. When an extension is approved, ask for the order to state expressly that the allowance continues at the same rate, because pay sections sometimes stop it until they see that line.

Trouble starts when the tenure ends and nobody acts. You continue to work in the borrowing office for some months while the extension proposal moves or the parent office delays your recall. Audit later says those months were beyond the sanctioned tenure and the allowance must be recovered. If you are in this position, write to both offices before the tenure ends, asking either for the extension order or for repatriation orders. A dated letter shows the delay was not yours, and it is the best answer to a later recovery.

An extension sanctioned after the event, with retrospective effect, normally regularises the allowance for the gap. Ask for one rather than accepting a recovery.

Railway, defence civilian and Group C deputationists

Railway employees on deputation, for example to a metro rail corporation, RVNL or a central ministry, are paid under Railway Board orders that adopt the DoPT rates. The option and ceilings are the same; ask the personnel branch for the RBE that applied the 2024 ceiling increase.

Defence civilians on deputation to a DRDO lab outside their parent organisation, to a border roads unit or to another ministry draw the same allowance, with the Controller of Defence Accounts checking the claim. Audit queries from the CDA about same station or change of station are frequent, so keep the movement order and transfer TA claim on file.

Group C staff go on deputation less often, but it happens, for instance an accounts clerk sent to a newly created commission or a stenographer to a tribunal. The rules are the same. The practical difference is that a Group C employee is protected more strongly against recovery of an allowance paid by mistake, which is worth remembering if an audit query arrives after the deputation ends.

Papers to keep from the day you join on deputation

• Selection or appointment order for the deputation post, showing the level and station
• Deputation terms letter, including the option window
• Your written option with its acknowledgement
• Last pay certificate from the parent office and the next increment date
• Pay fixation statement prepared by the borrowing office
• Any order of proforma promotion, MACP or pay revision in the parent cadre during deputation
• For foreign service: proof of payment of leave salary and pension or NPS contributions
• Extension orders, if the tenure was extended, and the repatriation order

When the borrowing office says you were overpaid

Recovery letters at the end of deputation are common. The usual causes are applying a 10 percent rate where the office later decides the station did not change, overlooking the Rs 2,25,000 cap, or continuing the allowance after the tenure ended. Ask for a month-by-month calculation and the order relied on, then check it against your own slips.

If the overpayment came from the office's own reading and you misrepresented nothing, the limits in Rafiq Masih (2015) apply. Group C staff, retirees, those within a year of retirement, and sums paid more than five years before the order are generally protected. Deputationists are often in Group A or B, so the stronger ground is usually the age of the payment or plain hardship. Our guide on replying to a recovery show cause notice covers the reply.

Also check which office is asking. The borrowing office may raise the demand, but recovery from salary is made by whichever office is paying you now, often your parent office. Both need to be in the reply.

Where a deputation pay dispute is filed

A central government employee on deputation remains a central government employee, with a lien in the parent cadre. A dispute about the deputation allowance, the option or the pay fixation is a service matter for the Central Administrative Tribunal, usually at the bench covering the place where you serve on deputation or where the order was passed. Both the parent department and the borrowing organisation may need to be made respondents; our guide on which department to sue while on deputation explains how to decide.

Under Section 20 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, make a representation first and wait up to six months. Under Section 21, file within a year of the final rejection. A wrong monthly allowance is a recurring grievance, but tribunals commonly limit arrears to about three years before filing, so a long wait is costly.

Premature repatriation, refusal of absorption and extension disputes are different questions with their own rules; see early repatriation or refused absorption. Members of the CAPF on deputation remain under their own force rules, and disputes about their service conditions usually go to the High Court. Our questions on transfers and deputation cover related points.

How long each step takes

What to look at this week

Open your last pay slip from the borrowing office. Check three figures: the rate applied (5 or 10 percent), the ceiling used (the 2024 figure or the old one), and whether basic pay plus allowance stays within Rs 2,25,000. If you are about to give an option, do the full-tenure comparison first. If you are on foreign service, ask for the contribution statement.

Most of these errors are put right by a clear letter with the arithmetic attached. Where the offices pass the file between them, or a recovery has been ordered, a structured representation and, if needed, an Original Application are the next steps; our page on pay fixation errors and on pay for officiating in a higher post deal with related problems.

You can talk to Advocate B.K. Singh to have your deputation pay papers reviewed or for updates on the current ceilings.