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‘Janmashtami gift’: Punjab government to hike DA of 85,000 staffers from 42% to 60%
The move comes in the backdrop of agitation by four lakh government employees and three lakh pensioners demanding immediate release of an 18% pending DA and arrears
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The Punjab government has decided to raise the dearness allowance (DA) from 42% to 60% for around 85,000 employees recruited after July 17, 2020, announced industries and commerce minister Aman Arora on Friday.
Arora, who is also the Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab president, described it as a ‘Janmashtami gift’ for government employees.
The move comes in the backdrop of agitation by four lakh government employees and three lakh pensioners demanding immediate release of an 18% pending DA and arrears. Earlier, the state government had approached the Supreme Court to challenge a recent Punjab and Haryana high court directive asking the state to clear all pending DA and dearness relief arrears (roughly ₹14,000 crore) within a fortnight. The government said that generating such a huge pay-out in two weeks was constitutionally and fiscally impossible.
Arora said the enhanced DA will apply to employees recruited under the post-2020 pay regime whose salaries are based on the 7th central pay commission pattern and have not been revised through court orders. According to the government, the beneficiaries include more than 20,000 teachers and over 11,000 constables, besides hundreds of employees in other categories.
The minister said the issue arose after the Punjab cabinet, in December 2020, approved central government-aligned pay scales/pay matrix for fresh recruits appointed after July 17, 2020. This effectively created two broad categories of employees — those appointed earlier under Punjab’s traditionally higher pay structure and those recruited subsequently under the central pay pattern.
While pre-July 2020 employees continue to receive higher Punjab-specific basic pay scales, post-2020 recruits were drawing salaries based on the central pay structure but were receiving DA at Punjab’s earlier rate of 42%, Arora said. The increase to 60%, he added, would bring their DA on par with the rate applicable to their central government counterparts.
“Employees are the backbone of good governance, and their rights and dignity remain a priority for the government,” Arora said, adding that the AAP government had maintained that Punjab employees should not be disadvantaged in comparison to their central government counterparts.
The minister said state employees in several cadres have historically received salaries higher than those of their central government staffers because of Punjab-specific pay scales. This argument, however, was less applicable to employees recruited after July 2020 under the central pay structure, Arora added.
On Thursday, the state government had extended an olive branch to protesting employees, urging them to abandon “confrontation approach” and “return to the negotiating table” and offering them salary plus dearness allowance on par with central government staff.
Sanjha Mulazam Manch, an umbrella body of employee unions, however, said no negotiations will occur until the government rescinds its move to take disciplinary action against employees marked as “unauthorised absent” during the August 27 statewide strike.
Sushil Kumar Fauji, convener of the Sanjha Mulazim Manch, said the unions plan to proceed with mass casual leave on September 8. Further actions include the gherao of ministers’ residences on September 12-13 and September 19-20, a mock Vidhan Sabha session on September 30, a massive employees’ rally in Sangrur on October 10, and another round of mass casual leave on October 21-22, he added.
