8th central pay commission: Who is IIM Bangalore professor, EAC member and the panel's part-time member Pulak Ghosh?

The 8th central pay commission (CPC) has planned visits for consultations with employee representatives in Telangana, Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir in May and June. The first visit will be from 18-19 May to Hyderabad (Telangana), later from 1-4 June to Srinagar (Jammu & Kashmir), followed by a visit to Ladakh UT on 8 June.

It added that separate meetings in Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) in Delhi, and cities in other states and union territories will be announced “in due course” over the next months.

Constituted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the 8th CPC is set to make big decisions on salary hikes and fitment factor, based on which updated compensation for central government employees and pensioners will be finalised.

8th CPC: Who is part-time member Professor Pulak Ghosh?

According to the official website, Pulak Ghosh is a tenured Professor of Finance, Decision Sciences and Public Policy at IIM Bangalore and a Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. “A leading Tech Statistician–Economist, Prof. Ghosh works at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), big data, finance, and public policy, with research spanning financial intermediaries, household finance, development finance, and sustainability/ESG,” it added.

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). It added that he played a pivotal role in the 2018 employment report using EPFO data and in shaping the PM-Kisan Samman Nidhi Scheme in 2019.

The professor has published extensively in top international journals such as 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, it added.

8th CPC members: Who else is on the panel?

The current panel is the eight such committee constituted by the central government since Independence. It is chaired by Former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Prakash
Desai. Other members on the panel are Professor Pulak Ghosh, tenured Professor of Finance, Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, as a Member of the Commission and Pankaj Jain, former IAS, as Member-Secretary.

How will the 8th Pay Commission make decisions?

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. It gathers views and inputs from employee unions, labour groups, ministries, pension bodies and other similar stakeholders; which will then be analysed to decide allowances, pension formula and salary structures for the 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 by a month to latest by 31 May 2026. The process for submissions had begun on 5 March 2026, with earlier deadline on 30 April.