DA AREAR UPDATE: Central employees and pensioners have been patiently waiting for their outstanding 18-month DA arrears. The question is arising in everyone’s mind:
when will their pending 18-month DA arrears come? We anticipated a significant declaration from the government in the fiscal budget, yet we didn’t witness anything of this magnitude.
In the first week of September, the central government may announce a second increase in the dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) for government employees and pensioners.
With a possible 3 percent increase in September, the total dearness allowance can reach 53 percent. However, the government has not yet released the 18 months’ arrears for DA and dearness relief (DR) stalled during the Kovid-19 epidemic.
While presenting the budget on July 23, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not make any major disclosures for the financial budget, which dealt a big blow to employees’ expectations.
Employees are hopeful that they can receive their pending DA arrears as soon as possible. Now the government has issued a big update on this. Like employees and pensioners, will they not receive the 18-month pending DA arrears money? Which will be like a big shock.
Recently, during the monsoon session of Parliament, two members asked the government about their decision regarding DA arrears. Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said ‘no’ to this question: “Is the government actively considering the release of DA/relief of 18 months of central employees/pensioners stopped during the COVID pandemic?”
Will the money for DA arrears be available?
The central government has clarified the situation regarding the availability of the pending DA arrears money. A few days ago, State Finance Minister Pankaj Chaudhary said that the government is not going to give the pending DA arrears money for 18 months.
There is no proposal from the government to release the 18-month DA arrears. The employee organizations had been demanding 18-month DA arrears for a long time, but the government shocked them with its statement. During COVID-19, the Modi government suspended the payment of 18-month DA arrears to central employees and pensioners.
The Modi government can increase employees’ dearness allowance by 4 percent. Following this, the salary will experience a significant boost. After the increase, the employee’s DA will increase by 54 percent. Currently, employees are receiving a 50 percent DA benefit. The increased DA will benefit approximately 1 crore employees.