What My Salary Actually Looks Like (Most PSU Employees Don’t Know This)
My April 2026 payslip shows a gross salary of ₹ 67,000. But the money that actually lands in my Bank account? ₹ 44,000.
That ₹ 23,000 gap is the first thing that shocks most new PSU joiners — including me when I started my job back in 2015. Nobody explains it to you on Day 1. You just see the number and wonder where half your salary went.
Here’s what makes up my gross: Basic Pay of ₹ 27,500, Grade Pay of ₹ 10,300, Dearness Allowance of ₹ 22,000, Transmission Allowance of ₹ 5,658, Child Education Allowance of ₹ 2,200, and Wash/Kit Allowance of ₹ 225. That’s six components, not one clean number.
The one that surprises people most is the DA. My Dearness Allowance alone is ₹ 22,000 this month — more than what many people in tier-2 Assam take home as their entire salary. DA gets revised twice a year by the government and is directly tied to inflation. It’s one of the best silent benefits of a PSU job that nobody talks about.
What Gets Cut Before I See a Rupee
Before I make a single spending decision, ₹ 9,000 has already left my account automatically. I don’t choose it. I don’t approve it. It just goes.
The biggest chunk is my PF contribution — ₹ 7,000 every month. That’s ₹ 84,000 a year building quietly in my EPFO account. I say “quietly” because most of us never check it. We should. It’s the one forced savings habit that will matter enormously at retirement.
Then comes the smaller deductions that add up fast. Professional Tax: ₹ 208 — mandatory, non-negotiable, goes to the state government. GSS (Group Savings Scheme): ₹ 596 — a welfare fund most PSU employees have but rarely understand fully. Rent: ₹ 480, which is the company accommodation charge since I live in a company-provided quarter in Duliajan. Electricity, gas, and A/C charges combined: ₹ 256.50. Society memberships : ₹ 80.
Here’s the point I want every new PSU joiner to internalize: this ₹9,000 disappears before you even open your salary message. So when you’re planning your monthly budget, your real starting number is not ₹67,681. It’s not even ₹44,173. It’s whatever is left after your EMIs and insurance — which I’ll cover next.
The gross salary figure your HR quotes during joining? Treat it as a fiction. Plan from your net.
The Two EMIs That Eat My Month
After the auto-deductions, the next thing that hits my salary is the EMIs. And these are the ones that genuinely shape every financial decision I make.
My Home Building Loan EMI is ₹12,025 per month. Outstanding balance: ₹15,00,000. Yes, fifteen lakhs still remaining. I’m not embarrassed to say that number out loud because I know at least half the PSU employees reading this are in the exact same position. We took the HBL because the company offers it at subsidised rates, and owning a home felt like the right adult decision. It still does. But ₹12,025 every month is a serious commitment that doesn’t pause for bad months, medical emergencies, or festival expenses.
The second EMI is my two-wheeler loan at ₹1,167 per month. Outstanding balance: just ₹2,169. That one is almost dead — probably one or two payments left. Small win, but I’ll take it.
Combined, ₹13,192 per month is locked before I buy a single vegetable or pay a single school fee.
The lesson I’d give my 2015 self: EMIs don’t care if it’s a bad month. They don’t care if your kid is sick, if the car needs repair, if a relative needs help. The amount leaves on the same date every month, good month or bad. Before you take any loan — HBL, vehicle, personal — calculate whether you can pay that EMI on your worst month, not your average month. If the answer is uncertain, the loan size is wrong.
The LIC I’m Still Paying (And Whether I’d Do It Again)
Every month, ₹1,543 goes toward a LIC endowment policy. I want to be honest about this one because it’s the financial decision I regret most.
I didn’t choose this policy. A senior colleague pushed it on me early in my career, the way it happens in almost every government office across India. You’re new, you trust your seniors, and suddenly you’re signed up for a 30-year endowment plan you don’t fully understand. Sound familiar?
Here’s my honest opinion after years of paying this premium: endowment policies are one of the worst financial products sold to government employees in India. The premium is high, the sum insured is embarrassingly low, the returns are mediocre, and the whole thing is structured to benefit the agent more than you. I would not recommend it to a single colleague. Not one.
What I’d recommend instead — and what I wish someone had told me in 2015 — is a pure Term Insurance Plan. Same or better coverage, fraction of the premium. A ₹1 crore term plan for a healthy 30-year-old costs roughly ₹ 10,000-₹ 14,000 per year. My LIC endowment costs ₹18,516 per year and won’t come close to ₹1 crore in coverage.
If you’re a PSU employee and a senior colleague is pushing an endowment policy on you right now, close this tab, call them back, and say no. Buy a term plan online directly. No agent, no pressure, no regret.
I’m still paying mine because surrendering mid-term means losing significantly. Lesson learned the expensive way.
What’s Actually Left and Where It Goes
After PF deductions, EMIs, and LIC, my real spending money is ₹ 29,000. That’s the number I actually budget from. Not ₹ 67,000. Not ₹ 44,000. ₹ 29,000.
Here’s honestly where it goes every month:
Family obligations and relative visits take the biggest bite — roughly 25%, around ₹ 7,300. If you’re from Assam and you’re reading this, you already know exactly what this means. Weddings, hokam (death rituals), bihu gifts, puja gifts, a relative in hospital, someone’s kid’s birthday, annaprasans — the social fabric of our culture is beautiful and it has a real monthly cost. I don’t resent it. I budget for it.
EMI-like fixed obligations eat another 30%, approximately ₹ 8,800. This covers smaller recurring commitments that function like EMIs even if they’re not formally called that.
Groceries for the family run about 15%, roughly ₹ 4,400. Kids’ education takes 10%, around ₹ 2,900 — fees, books, tuition, the costs that only go up every year. Fuel for the bike and any transport needs another 10%, about ₹ 2,900.
That leaves roughly 10% — around ₹ 2,900 to ₹ 4,000 — for actual savings and investments.
Right now I invest ₹ 3,000 per month in index funds and ₹ 1,000 per month in PPF. That’s ₹ 4,000 total going toward building something. It’s not a large number. But it’s consistent, it’s real, and on a ₹ 44,000 salary with a home loan, I’d argue it’s respectable.
The honest truth: there is no fat in this budget. Every rupee has a job. Which is exactly why building a side income isn’t ambition for me — it’s necessity.
The Tax Situation — New Regime Decision
My annual gross salary is ₹8.46 lakh. My total income tax for the year: ₹ 18,573. That works out to an effective tax rate of roughly 2.4%.
I’m on the New Tax Regime, and the reason is simple: under the new regime, income up to ₹12 lakh attracts zero tax after the rebate under Section 87A. My gross salary doesn’t cross ₹12 lakh yet. So my actual tax liability before the standard deduction of ₹75,000 is already minimal. Choosing the old regime and chasing deductions under 80C, 80D, and HRA would have been more paperwork for the same or worse outcome at my income level.
The ₹75,000 standard deduction gets applied automatically under both regimes. Most employees don’t realize this — it’s not something you claim separately. It just reduces your taxable income by ₹75,000 before the calculation begins.
Now the question every PSU employee asks me every January: old regime or new regime?
My honest answer: if your gross salary is still below ₹12 lakh, the new regime is almost certainly better for you. The math is straightforward — why build a complicated deduction structure to save tax when the new regime gives you a clean ₹12 lakh buffer without any of that effort?
And here’s the bigger picture most people are missing: the old tax regime is on its way out. The government has been systematically making the new regime more attractive every budget — higher rebate limits, higher standard deduction, simplified slabs. The direction of travel is clear. Adapting now, while your income is still in the lower bracket, means you learn the new system without pressure. Waiting until you’re forced to switch at a higher income level is a worse time to figure it out.
Switch early. Keep it simple.
What I’d Do Differently Starting Today
Ten years into a PSU career, you accumulate opinions. Here are mine — the things I’d do differently if I was sitting at a desk on a April 2015 morning, signing my joining papers at my office.
Get term insurance on Day 1. Not an endowment policy, not a money-back plan pushed by a senior colleague. A pure term plan. Today’s term insurance products have evolved — many now offer return of premium options, combined term plus health cover, and riders that bring down the effective cost significantly. The old excuse of “I’ll lose the premium if nothing happens” no longer holds. There are products that address exactly that fear. Buy term. Buy it early. Buy it before a senior colleague books an appointment with you.
Buy health insurance independently. Don’t rely entirely on your employer’s CGHS or company medical scheme. Company coverage changes, transfers happen, and the day you actually need serious medical coverage is not the day you want to discover the gaps. A personal family floater policy, started young, costs very little and compounds in value every year you don’t claim it.
Start a SIP in NIFTYBEES or a simple index fund from your first salary. Even ₹500 a month. The amount doesn’t matter at the start — the habit does. I wasted several years of compounding by waiting until I felt “ready.” There is no ready. There is only started and not started.
On the HBL — take it without hesitation. It is genuinely cheap money. The interest rate on company HBL is subsidised well below market rates. If you’re disciplined enough, you can invest a portion of the disbursed amount and earn returns that exceed your loan interest — effectively making profit from borrowed money. I wish my employer increased the HBL limit. At ₹15 lakh outstanding, I can tell you the housing loan has been one of the better financial decisions I made, not despite the EMI but because of what the asset represents.
On retirement corpus — build it yourself. Our organisation doesn’t offer NPS. Instead we have the Group Superannuation Scheme — currently 1% of basic from employee plus 1% from employer, totalling 2%. As part of the trade union, we’re actively pushing to increase this to 5% from both sides, making it 10% total. Until that changes, my approach is to build a personal retirement corpus through index funds and dedicated savings schemes for retired personnel that frankly offer better returns than NPS in our specific situation.
One more — and I say this carefully. A small, disciplined allocation to Bitcoin or Ethereum, not as a trading bet but as a long term holding, is something I’d have started earlier. Emphasis on small. Emphasis on disciplined. Not your emergency fund, not your EMI money, not money you need in the next five years. But as a single digit percentage of your portfolio, ignored and held — it has a place. I’m not recommending this to everyone. I’m saying it’s what I’d tell my 2015 self.
Why I Started PaisaPSU
Every January, my phone starts buzzing.
Colleagues from my department, friends from other PSU units, relatives in government service — all asking the same questions. Old regime or new regime? Should I surrender my LIC? How do I show HRA in my ITR? Is my PF withdrawal taxable? Can I invest my HBL money somewhere?
I answer every message. Every year. For free. Because nobody else is answering them clearly.
That’s why paisaPSU exists.
Most personal finance content in India is written for a 28-year-old software engineer in Bengaluru with a ₹ 15 lakh CTC, stock options, and a Zerodha account. That person is well served. There are hundreds of blogs, YouTube channels, and Instagram pages built exactly for them.
But what about the Junior Accountant in a Natural Gas PSU in Duliajan ? The Section Officer in a state government department in Jorhat ? The railway employee in Lumding planning his retirement ? The defence pensioner in Tezpur trying to understand Form 16 ?
Nobody is writing for us. Nobody is explaining our salary slips, our GSS, our HBL, our specific tax situation, our trade union negotiations, our retirement options — in plain language, without jargon, by someone who actually lives this life.
I do. And that’s what this blog is going to be.
If you’re a government or PSU employee in tier-2 or tier-3 India trying to make sense of your money — you’re in the right place. Subscribe below and I’ll send you one honest, useful piece every week. No spam. No stock tips. No advice from someone who has never seen a PSU payslip in their life.
Just one accountant from Duliajan, figuring it out alongside you.
— Pulak Dehingia