Haryana govt freezes dearness allowance and dearness relief at 17% for a year

Haryana government on Monday decided to freeze dearness allowance (DA) of its employees and dearness relief (DR) of all pensioners at the current rate of 17% till

Haryana government on Monday decided to freeze dearness allowance (DA) of its employees and dearness relief (DR) of all pensioners at the current rate of 17% till July 2021.

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Although the state government will continue to pay both DA and DR at a rate of 17%, employees and pensioners will not receive the arrears of these allowances between January 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021.

There are about 3.5 lakh employees across 38 departments, boards and corporations of the state. The salary bill of the employees is about ₹1,870 crore per month, while the pension bill comes to around ₹770 crore per month.

Before the imposition of the nationwide lockdown on March 24, Haryana was a revenue surplus state. However, because of the lockdown, the state has been struggling to meet its financial liabilities and has been releasing salaries and pensions in a staggered manner. The financial crisis has also forced the government to impose a ban on the purchase of new vehicles, apart from deferring all new recruitments for government jobs for a year.

On Monday, the finance department, in a letter to all departmental heads, commissioners of divisions, deputy commissioners informed them about the decision to freeze the DA and DR at the current rate.

“In view of the crisis arising out of Covid-19, it has been decided that additional instalment of DA payable to Haryana government employees and dearness relief to Haryana government pensioners, due from January 1, 2020, shall not be paid (sic),” read the letter.

“However, dearness allowance and dearness relief at the current rate of 17% will continued to be paid,” the letter stated.

The letter further stated that as and when the decision to release the future instalment of DA and DR is taken, their rates as effective from January 1, 2020; July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, will be restored “prospectively” and will be subsumed in the cumulative revised rate, which will be effective from July 1, 2021.