The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a hike of 3 percentage points from 28% on Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) for central government employees and pensioners. After this hike, the DA will increase to 31 per cent. The hike comes into effect from July 1, 2021, Union Minister Anurag Thakur announced at a press briefing in New Delhi.
The new hike comes a few days before Diwali and is aimed at benefiting over 47 lakh employees and 68.62 lakh pensioners. The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both dearness allowance and dearness relief would be Rs 9,488.70 crore per annum, the government said in a statement.
Earlier this year, the government decided to increase the DA for central government employees from 17% to 28%. The increase reflects the additional installments due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2021 and January 1, 2021.
DA and DR installments are payable for four periods i.e. January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, January 1, 2021 and July 1, 2021.
The government had stopped all such hikes last year as coronavirus dented its revenue. Due to increase in DA of central government employees, the government has almost ₹34,400 crore annually.
During the press briefing, Thakur also mentioned India’s achievement of achieving the milestone of administering 100 crore Covid-19 jabs so far.
“I congratulate everyone for achieving the 100 crore vaccination mark. We achieved this despite the atmosphere of apprehensions.”
The cabinet also approved PM Gati Shakti – National Master Plan for Multi-Modal Connectivity for Economic Zones. This comes a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched ₹100 lakh crore National Master Plan for Multi-Modal Connectivity.
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