Your salary will decrease next year, this is how the Modi government plans these new rules will apply

From next year, employees will get an increase in gratuity and provident fund (PF) items. At the same time, the money in hand (take home salary) will decrease. Even the balance sheets of companies will be affected.

The reason for this is the three Wages Code Bill (Code on Wages Bill) passed in Parliament last year. These Bills are likely to come into force from 1 April next year. The new compensation rules, which is part of the Code on Wages 2019, are likely to become effective from April 2021.

As per the new rules, the allowance component cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total salary or compensation and this means that basic salary has to be 50 per cent. In compliance with this, companies will have to increase the basic pay component of salaries.

Which will result in a proportional rise in gratuity payments and employees’ contribution to the provident fund (PF). Retirement contributions will also mean lower take-home salary for employees but the retirement corpus of employees will grow.

At present, several private companies prefer to set the non-allowance part of the total compensation less than 50 per cent and the allowance portion higher. However, this will change as soon as the new wage rules come to effect.

The rules are expected to impact private sector employees’ salaries because they usually get higher allowances. Employers will have to hike the basic pay of employees to meet the 50 per cent basic pay requirement, according to the new rules.