7th Pay Commission: BIG Diwali Gift For Govt Employees & Pensioners, Cabinet Approved Another Hike in DA & DR- Know All Details Here

By WEB DESK Last updated Oct 21, 2021

The Central Government on Thursday approved an increase of 3 percentage points on the Dearness Allowance (DA) Dearness Relief (DR) for central government employees and pensioners from 28%. After this hike, the DA will increase to 31%. While addessing the media, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said that the hike comes into effect from 1 July, 2021.

The new hike comes just days ahead of Diwali and is aimed to benefit over 47 lakh employees and 68.62 lakh pensioners. “The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief would be Rs.9,488.70 crore per annum,” the government said in a statement.

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The DA hike will cost Centre Rs 9,500 crore per year, said Thakur. The move will benefit 4.7 million employees and 6.8 million pensioners. This will be a welcome move for the central government employees and pensioners after the government approved pending DA hike, which came into effect from July 1, 2021. Three instalments of DA for the central government employees and DR for pensioners, due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, were stalled due to the Covid pandemic.

There was a previous Dearness Allowance increase in January of 2020 where the government hiked it up by 4%, which was followed by another 3% increase in June of that same year. The central government employees saw yet another hike in January of 2021 where the DA once again went up by 4%.