Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government is not planning to impose pay cuts on some categories of the Central government employees to ease financial burden amid the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 outbreak.
Following reports that the government is planning to impose pay cut on some categories of the central government employees to deal with the fund crunch during the lockdown, the Union Finance Ministry said on Monday.
"There is no proposal under consideration of Govt for any cut whatsoever in the existing salary of any category of central government employees. The reports in some section of media are false and have no basis whatsoever," the Finance Ministry said in a tweet.
The reports in some section of media are false and have no basis whatsoever, it added.
Earlier, the Modi government had frozen Dearness Allowance (DA) of the central government employees and dearness relief (DR) of pensioners due to the COVID-19 crisis.
However, the ruling-BJP soon came up with a clarification (after rumours related to the move started making rounds) that there was no cut in DA and DR and the additional hike over 17% currently paid would be reinstated prospectively, effective January 2020.
“There is no cut in DA and DR. It’s a temporary HOLD on the additional HIKE, which will be reinstated. DA and DR at the current rate, the highest ever rate at 17% brought by Modi government, will continue to be paid,” the BJP said in a tweet.
“When the government decides to release the instalments of DA and DR from 1 July, 2021, the effective rates from January 2020, July 2020 and January 2021 will be restored prospectively and will be subsumed in the cumulative revised rate effective from 1 July, 2021," it added.
Meanwhile, several state governments also either deferred or put hold hike in DA of their employees to ease financial burden arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Delhi government has put on hold hike in the dearness allowance of around 2.2 lakh employees and pensioners till July 2021.