Over one crore officers, employees and pensioners of Central government will have more money in their hands to spend during Diwali with the Union Cabinet, in its meeting on Wednesday, deciding to raise the dearness allowance (DA) for serving officers and employees and dearness relief (DR) for pensioners.

DA/DR has been raised at the rate of 17 per cent of basic pay/pension effective July 1. Earlier this rate was 12 per cent. Prakash Javadekar, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, claimed that 5 per cent rise in DA/DR is the steepest in recent times.

Serving and retired employees will get three months’ arrears along with salary/pension for the month of October. This increase is in accordance with the accepted formula, which is based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission.

DA is revised twice a year and made effective from January 1 and July. This revision is done on the basis of change in retail inflation.

The annual cost to the exchequer due to increase in DA and DR will be around ₹16,000 crore while for the remaining period of current fiscal, it would cost nearly ₹10,000 crore. This will benefit about 49.93 lakh Central government employees and 65.26 lakh pensioners.

DA/DR is paid to Central government employees/pensioners to adjust the cost of living and to protect their basic pay/pension from erosion in the real value.

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