Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday termed that the centre’s decision to freeze the dearness allowance (DA) of central government employees ‘insensitive and inhuman’.
“It is an insensitive and inhumane decision of the government to cut the DA of central employees, pensioners and jawans serving the public instead of suspending the multi-million crore bullet train project and the Central Vista beautification project,” Gandhi tweeted.
“The tragic part is that by deducting this amount from January 1, 2020 up to 30th June, 2021 for a period of 1.5 years, the government of India proceeds to deduct almost Rs 38 thousand crore from the income of these middle class government employees and pensioners, who rely completely on the pay and pensions that they receive,” said Randeep Surjewala, chief spokesperson of Congress.
“Even more tragic and objectionable is the fact that the government of India has not even spared our armed forces. The government has deducted Rs 11 thousand crore of the 15 lakh serving armed forces personnel and nearly 26 lakh military pensioners. What is their fault? They are serving the nation in times of all types of crises,” he added.
The Centre on Thursday decided to freeze the three installments of dearness allowance (DA) for central government employees and pensioners till July 2021.
The decision was taken as the number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the country.
The Centre, however, announced that dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) will be continued to be paid at the current rate.
“The additional instalment of dearness allowance (DA) payable to central government employees and dearness relief (DR) to central government pensioners, due from 1 January 2020 shall not be paid,” the union finance ministry stated in a statement.