The wait of more than one crore central employees and pensioners of the country has ended on Saturday i.e. 18th April. According to sources, the Cabinet on Saturday approved a 2 percent increase in Dearness Allowance (DA) for central government employees and pensioners. After which dearness allowance and pension of central employees will increase from 58 percent to 60 percent. Central employees were waiting for dearness allowance for a long time. This allowance, which will be implemented from January, was awaited since the beginning of March. The government usually announces the increase in January in March. But this market has happened only after half of April has passed.
This decision has come at a time when employee organizations are demanding major changes in the salary structure under the proposed 8th Pay Commission. In its memorandum, the National Council-Joint Consultative Mechanism (NC-JCM) has sought a higher fitment factor of 3.83, which could lead to an increase in the minimum basic pay from Rs 18,000 to around Rs 69,000. It has also proposed to expand the definition of “family” for salary calculations to include dependent parents. Besides, it has also been suggested to set a limit on pay inequality and give higher salary increase and inflation linked allowances.
The government increases the dearness allowance of its employees and pensioners twice in the months of January and July. The purpose of these changes is to reduce the impact of inflation and help in maintaining the purchasing power and standard of living of employees and pensioners. Dearness Allowance (DA) is a 'cost of living adjustment' given to government employees, calculated as a fixed percentage of the basic pay, to offset the impact of inflation.
Meanwhile, it is also being told that the Cabinet has also approved a 'Sovereign Maritime Fund' with a corpus of Rs 13,000 crore, so that stable and affordable insurance security can be provided to Indian flagged ships coming to and from India. It is also learned that the Cabinet has extended the 'Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana' (PMGSY) till 2028, for which an additional allocation of Rs 3,000 crore has been made.
