Centre announces DA hike involving Rs8,629 cr annual burden
19 Apr 2013
The union cabinet today approved a proposal to increase dearness allowance (DA) of central government employees by 8 percentage points to 80 per cent from the existing 72 per cent, involving an additional annual burden of Rs8,629.20 crore on the exchequer.
The hike, which would be effective from 1 January 2013, will benefit about 5 million existing employees and 3 million pensioners of the central government.
The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both the DA and dearness relief would be of the order of Rs8,629.20 crore per annum and Rs10,067.36 crore in the financial year 2013-14 (that is for a period of 14 months from January 2013 to February 2014), an official release said today.
Both employees and pensioners would be entitled for arrears.
The cabinet had earlier, on 2 April, deferred a decision on hiking DA as the finance minister was not present.
The government had, in September last year, hiked DA to 72 per cent, which was made effective from 1 July 2012.
DA in excess of 50 per cent of basic salary is usually merged with basic pay. This increases the amount of allowances employees get as a proportion of the basic pay.
