The central government today announced 2 per cent dearness allowance, benefiting its 48 lakh central government employees and 52 lakh pensioners, in a bid to ease the inflationary pressure.
All eyes of central government employees are now on ‘Committee on Allowances’, which will take a final decision in fatter allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
The increasing of Dearness Allowance (DA) of central government employees and officials were not helpful for maintaining their living standard, Finance Ministry’s official said on Thursday.
They also said fatter allowances under the 7th Pay Commission recommendations should implement which would give them some financial comfort, a step they had hoped might be taken within weeks.
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said the government may make a formal announcement on higher allowance after obtaining feedback from Finance Ministry.
They also said the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had initially appointed ‘Committee on Allowances’ headed by Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa on July 22 for examination of the recommendations of 7th Pay Commission on allowances other than dearness allowance and asked to submit its report with in four months.
The pay commission had recommended abolition of 51 allowances and subsuming 37 others out of 196 allowances. So, there was resentment among employees over suggestions to scrap some allowances.
The Pay Commission recommended overall increase in allowances by 63 per cent.
The Finance Secretary Ashok Lavasa recently said, “A committee headed by me is currently examining the Pay Commission’s recommendations on allowances and it will submit its report soon.
“The cabinet is likely to approve the proposal of committee on allowances and the higher allowances will be implemented with retrospective effect from August 2016 but the central government employees unions demanded for implementation of the allowances with retrospective effect from January 2016,” the sources confirmed.
“Moreover, arrears for higher allowances will be paid from August,” the source assured.
However, the central government employees’union expressed its resentment over the non-formation of High Level Committee for reviewing the minimum pay and allowances and say they must lead their march to Parliament on December 15 against non-formation of High Level Committee.
The central government employees and pensioners got theirs arrears of basic pay and pension arising from implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations in one go in August salaries and pension respectively. The hike in basic pay and pension has been made effective from January 1, 2016.
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