8th Pay Commission collects 9 years of CGEGIS data; what is it and what changes employees expect

In a letter dated September 3, 2026, 8th CPC's Deputy Secretary, Ravi Prakash Yadav, informed all nodal officers that “Annexure-M (CGEGIS) has been revised to include additional information for the financial years 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23.”

The letter also requested that “the requisite information for the above-mentioned financial years may also kindly be furnished in the revised format through the Data Collection Portal by 17.09.2026.”

The revised Annexure-M goes beyond a summary of subscriptions. For each of Groups A, B and C, ministries must report the total amount paid under the insurance component, the total paid under the savings component, and the total number of employees who died while in service, for every year from 2017-18 to 2025-26.

In effect, the Commission has asked the government departments and ministries to furnish, year by year and group by group, details of CGEGIS payments actually made to families of employees who died in harness, and what was returned to those who retired.

CGEGIS is the group insurance scheme that covers every regular central government employee. A monthly subscription amount is deducted from salary and split between an insurance fund, which is paid to the family if the employee dies in service, and a savings fund, which is returned to the employee on superannuation.

The unions representing employees have submitted memorandums to the 8th CPC, arguing that the scheme has been frozen for decades even as its payout obligations have mounted. 8th CPC's Annexure M would now document the death-and-payout numbers.

"The Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme (CGEGIS) has not been revised since its inception in 1990,” the Ministerial Staff Association (MSA), Survey of India, said in its memorandum to the 8th CPC, adding, “The current insurance cover is woefully inadequate to provide any meaningful financial security to the family of a deceased employee in the event of an unfortunate demise.” It has demanded that the insurance cover under CGEGIS must be increased by at least 10 times the current rates to reflect modern living costs and the inflationary environment.

The FNPO said, "The CGEGIS insurance slabs have remained substantially tethered to 4th Pay Commission recommendations — over 40 years ago.”

It added that “the 7th CPC explicitly acknowledged this disparity and recommended substantial upward revision,” yet “the Government maintained the 1980s-era slabs, leaving millions without a credible safety net.”

The FNPO wants the 7th CPC slabs of ₹15,00,000 for Group C, ₹25,00,000 for Group B and ₹50,00,000 for Group A to be implemented immediately as “minimum baselines, not targets,” then enhanced further to match 2026 salary structures under 8th CPC. It has proposed subscriptions of ₹1,000, ₹1,500 and ₹3,000 a month for Groups C, B and A for covers of ₹1 crore, ₹1.50 crore and ₹3 crore respectively. The FNPO has also proposed an inflation-indexed design in which CGEGIS coverage gets automatically revised upward by 25% whenever DA reaches 50%,.

Other associations have also urged the 8th CPC to look into the CGEGIS reform.

"The insurance coverage under CGEGIS is often considered inadequate in view of present-day financial realities. It is generally felt that the benefits are not commensurate with the monthly contributions deducted over long periods,” the Railways Senior Citizens Welfare Society (RSCWS) said in its memorandum to the 8th CPC.

The 8th CPC's letter does not say what it intends to do with three more years of payout data. But with the 17 September deadline over, it is expected that the Annexure-M will now help the 8th CPC make its CGEGIS recommendations.