13 Mar , 2023 By : Monika Singh
7th Pay Commission Latest News: The Central Government has no plan to release the 18 months of Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears stopped during the Covid-19 pandemic to Central Government Employees.
“The decision to freeze three instalments of Dearness Allowance(DA)/Dearness Relief (DR) to Central Government employees/pensioners due from 01.01.2020, 01.07.2020 and 01.01.2021 was taken in the context of COVID-19, which caused economic disruption, so as to ease pressure on Government finances. As the adverse financial impact of the pandemic in 2020 and the financing of welfare measures taken by Government had a fiscal spill over beyond FY 2020-21, arrears of DA/DR which mostly pertain to the difficult FY of 2020-21 are not considered feasible,” Pankaj Chaudhary, Union Minister of State for Finance, said in a written reply to a query in the Lok Sabha today.
“Even now the fiscal deficit of the Government is running at more than double the level envisaged in the FRBM Act,” he added.
Chaudhary was responding to a query on “whether the Government has any plan to release the 18 months DA Arrears stopped during Covid-19 Epidemic to Central Government Employees and Pensioners in the near future and if so, the details thereof and the time by when the Government is likely to release the arrears?”
The Minister further said that an amount of Rs 34402.32 crore had been saved and utilized to tide over the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on account of the freezing of three instalments of Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief payable to Central Government employees and pensioners.
Meanwhile, the Central Government is expected to announce a 4% hike in the DA rate for the benefit of Central Government Employees. A similar hike in Dearness Relief (DR) for pensioners is also expected to be announced soon. The current rate of DA/DR provided to Central Government Employees and Pensioners is 38%.
The Dearness Allowance rate provided to Central Government Employees is based on the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.
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