The Union Cabinet has approved a 2% increase in Dearness Allowance (DA) for central government employees on April 18, 2026. Apart from this, Dearness Relief (DR) for Central Government pensioners has also been increased by 2%. Due to this latest increase, DA and DR for both central government employees and pensioners has now become 60 respectively. More than 1 crore people are expected to benefit from this decision.
Dearness allowance, which is a part of the salary of government employees and pensioners, has been increased to Rs 60. With this increase in DA, there will be an increase in the 'take-home salary' of central government employees from January 2026. The effective date of increased DA and DR is January 1, 2026. The central government usually changes these allowances twice a year, in January and July, and its official announcement is made later.
After the announcement of the hike on January 18, 2026, central government employees can expect to get increased DA from their April salary. Apart from this, they will be given arrears from the month of January to the month of March.
Now the biggest question is that how much will be the increase in take home salary due to increase in dearness allowance. This has to be understood with an example. Suppose the basic salary of a central government employee is Rs 50,000, then his previous dearness allowance at the rate of 58 percent was Rs 29 thousand. Now that DA has increased to 60 percent, their dearness allowance will increase to Rs 30 thousand.
This means that from April they will get an additional Rs 1,000 (Rs 29,000 – Rs 30,000) as DA. Since the increase in DA is effective from January 1, 2026, they will also get the arrears of the last three months.
Similarly, Dearness Relief (DR) for Central Government pensioners has been increased by 2 percent, taking it to 60 percent. As a result of this increase, the monthly pension of these pensioners will increase from April 2024. To understand its impact, let's look at an example:
If a central government pensioner gets a basic pension of Rs 60 thousand per month, then at the previous 58 percent DR rate he was getting Rs 34,800. Now that DR has increased to 60 percent, they will get Rs 36,000 per month as dearness relief. This means that his pension will increase by Rs 1,200 per month.
