Lakhs of central government employees and pensioners have been waiting for the last one year to avail the benefits of hike in dearness allowance (DA) and the dearness relief (DR). All of them heaved a sigh of relief in March this year when the Centre announced that the DA of central government employees and DR for pensioners would resume from 1st July, 2021. However, it seems that they will now have to wait for some more time as the meeting that was going to resolve the long-pending 7th Central Pay Commission matrix issue has been postponed. According to reports, the meeting between officials of the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure) and National Council of JCM which was scheduled on May 8, has been postponed in view of the worsening pandemic situation. The meeting is likely to be held in the last week of May. Will the government discuss DA hike during the upcoming meeting? Take a look at the latest updates. The matrix issue has reportedly been delaying implementation of full benefits to the employees and the pensioners. Amid growing concerns regarding the payment of DA, Minister of State (MoS) for Finance, Anurag Thakur had in a written reply in the Upper House of the Parliament, stated the three pending DA instalments of the central government employees will be 'subsumed' and the revised DA rates will become effective from 1st July 2021. While the additional DA benefits of the employees were frozen till June 2021, the Union Minister’s announcement had come as a big relief for over 50 lakh central government employees. Following postponement of the crucial meeting, a senior official of the National council of JCM said that they are in regular touch to resolve the matter of three instalments of DA payable to the central government employees, and that the issue is very much in the agenda of the meeting. The Central government employees and pensioners are currently getting a 17 per cent DA which is likely to go up to 28%. If the DA is restored from July, it would benefit over 50 lakh central government employees and more than 65 lakh pensioners. All eyes are now on the May-end meeting of the senior officials.