7th Pay Commission: Decision on DA, DR arrears likely today

The Centre has said the stalled dearness allowance and dearness relief of central government employees and pensioners will be resumed from July 1.

The Centre is scheduled to hold a meeting on Saturday regarding the pending dearness allowance arrears (DA) of millions of central government employees and pensioners who are awaiting a hike in their salary. Officials of the Union ministry of finance, the National Council of Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM) and the department of personnel and training (DoPT) are expected to take the final decision on the DA arrears under the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission during the meeting.

Dearness allowance of the central government employees was raised by 4 per cent in January 2020, by 3 per cent in June 2020 and by 4 per cent in January this year. (AFP Photo)

“The meeting between the officials of the department of expenditure at the ministry of finance, department of personnel and training and the representatives of JCM is going to take place on June 26, 2021. The scheduled meeting will be chaired by the cabinet secretary of India,” Shiv Gopal Mishra, JCM’s secretary (staff side), was quoted as saying by Mint earlier this month.

The Centre has said in Parliament that the stalled dearness allowance and dearness relief (DR) of central government employees and pensioners will be resumed from July 1, 2021. 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.

The dearness allowance of the central government employees was raised by 4 per cent in January 2020, by 3 per cent in June 2020 and by 4 per cent in January this year. The decision now to restore DA from July 2021 would benefit about 5 million central government employees and more than 6.5 million pensioners.

Any increase in DA from July 1, however, will only be effective from that day and employees would not get any arrears on non-revision of DA for the previous period. The dearness allowance, currently paid at the rate of 17 per cent, is likely to be raised by 11 per cent, taking the total percentage hike to 28 per cent, according to reports

The minimum salary currently of central employees, according to the pay matrix, is ₹18,000 and a 15 per cent dearness allowance is expected to be added on the existing one, reports have said. Reports have said central government employees must keep in mind the 7th Pay Commission’s fitment factor of 2.57 while calculating the probable hike in their monthly salary.