MOHAMMAD ZIYAUDDIN
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7th Pay Commission: The central government has recently increased dearness allowance (DA) for central government employees and dearness relief (DR) for pensioners by 3% for the half year July-December 2024. With this increase in DA/DR, dearness allowance has reached 53% of the basic pay level, leading to speculation that DA may be merged with the basic salary. The basis of this speculation is an old example of 2004 when DA was merged with the basic salary after it reached 50%.
What is the stance of the government?
However, the government's stance is not to include dearness allowance in the basic salary, even though it has crossed the 50% mark. According? Ng to a report by Financial Express, a senior government official recently said that dearness allowance was included in the basic salary during the 5th Pay Commission. In fact, at that time the Consumer Price Index had increased by 50% compared to the base index used by the previous Pay Commission.
What does the rule say
However, later the Sixth Pay Commission clearly stated that dearness allowance should not be added to the basic salarWhatven if it is more than 50% of the basic salary. The next DA hike may be announced in March before Holi.
However, this hike will be effective from January 2024. The central government revises DA and DR for employees and pensioners twice every year in March and September/October. The revision is effective from January and July and central government employees usually get the salary for April and October with arrears of two to three months.
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