New Delhi: All the three pending installments of Dearness Allowance (DA) of the Central government employees and pensioners are set to be restored starting July 1, as per 7th Pay Commission recommendations. However, the Central government employees may lose their DA arrears.
No doubt the Narendra Modi government's decision to restore DA benefits from July has raised hopes among the central government employees and pensioners that they could get a fat increase in DA, any increase in the said allowance from July 1 will only be effective from that day, which means the CG employees would not get any arrears on non-revision of DA for previous period.
The three installments of DA for central government employees and DR for pensioners, due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021, were frozen in view of the Covid-19 pandemic that hit the country's economy hard. However, the government's decision now to restore the DA from July this year would benefit around 50 lakh central government employees and over 60 lakh pensioners.
In a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance, Anurag Thakur recently said: "As and when the decision to release the future installments of Dearness Allowance due from July 1, 2021 is taken, the rates of DA as effective from January 1 and July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021 will be restored prospectively and will be subsumed in the cumulative revised rates effective from July 1, 2021."
With the suspension of DA revision for almost one and half years, the government has reportedly saved Rs 37,530.08 crore which helped it augment resources required to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the country's economy through various stimulus measures.
The central government employees are presently getting a DA of 17 per cent. It is worth mentioning that the Union Cabinet had last year approved a 4 per cent increase in DA for the CG employees and pensioners, taking the allowance to 21 per cent. However, in the wake of the pandemic, the disbursement of DA at the increased rate was suspended along with the DR for the pensioners.