The Union Cabinet on Friday approved a four per cent hike in the dearness allowance of central government employees.
The hike of four per cent means that the monthly salary of central government employees’ will go up by Rs 720 to Rs 10,000 per month.
The Union government had earlier said that dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) was due for central government employees and pensioners with effect from January 1, 2020.
Dear Allowance/Dearness Relief is paid to central government employees/pensioners to adjust the cost of living and to protect their basic pay/pension from erosion in the real value.
Financial experts have earlier said the Central Government may announce four percent hike in dearness allowance for its employees leading to a rise in DA from existing 17 percent to 21 percent.
According to Harishankar Tiwari, a former president of AG Brotherhood, after the DA announcement, the Travel Allowance (TA) of the central government employees will also get increased by the same percentage points.
The NDA government may increase the minimum salary as recommended under the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC) and modify the fitment factor of the central government employees in budget 2020.
The central government employees have been demanding that their minimum salary be increased to Rs 26,000 from the existing Rs 18,000.
While a Level-1 central government employee’s minimum basic salary is Rs 18,000, for the Cabinet Secretary level employees’ basic salary is Rs 2.5 lakh.