7th Pay Commission: Central govt employees may get DA hike in March

Central government employees are likely to receive an increment in Dearness Allowance (DA) before Holi. The government will reportedly increase the DA by 3 percent and which will be effective from January 1, 2022. According to a Moneycontrol.com (Hindi) report, the increased salary, along with arrears for January and February, will be paid to the employees in March.Currently, these employees are getting DA at 31 percent, if it is increased by 3 percent then the allowance will stand at 34 percent. If the government announces a Dearness Allowance hike then the employees will get the allowance, along with arrears, for January, February and March.

Dearness Allowance constitutes a substantial part of salary and pension. This allowance is given to the central government employees to offset the inflationary impact on their salary. Under 7th Pay Commission (7th CPC), the government provides increment in DA twice a year – in January and July. DA also varies based on government employees' locations- depending upon whether they are located in urban, semi-urban or the rural sector.

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If the government announces increment, it will benefit nearly 48 lakh central government employees and 65 lakh pensioners across India.

Last year, the government increased the Dearness Allowance of the central government employees from 28 percent to 31 percent. Despite COVID-19 pandemic, these employees were given DA increment.  However, there is no official announcement from the government in this regard.

Under 7th Pay Commission, DA for the central government employees is calculated as:

Dearness Allowance percentage = ((Average of AICPI (Base Year 2001=100) for the past 12 months -115.76)/115.76) x 100. Here, AICPI stands for All-India Consumer Price Index.Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.