The central government's allowance committee, led by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa, is said to have completed reviewing the allowances under 7th Pay Commission and is expected to announce its recommendations shortly. The Allowances Committee was set up in July 2016 on the direction of the Cabinet to look into the provision of allowances other than dearness allowance under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations. Initially, the committee was given a four-month time frame to come out with recommendations, which was later extended until February 22, 2017. Media reports indicate that Committee has revised the House Rent Allowance or HRA to 30%, up from 24% as suggested by the 7th pay panel. The pay commission also recommended doing away with 53 of the 196 allowances and merging a few others. Accordingly, the committee has proposed to abolish 52 allowances, and subsume 36 allowances into existing allowances or proposed as new one. 12 Allowances are reported to have been proposed to be retained without changes, while the rest of the allowances have been tweaked a little.