Employees serving in the Central government can look forward to a 4 per cent increase in their dearness allowance (DA), with effect from January 2021, as per the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission.
Further, they have released Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners from January 2020.
While the existing DA is 17 per cent of the basic pay or pension, the hike of four per cent will take it up to 21 per cent. The increase has been approved to compensate for price rise, according to the Ministry of Finance.
With dearness relief (DR) also being released to pensioners this month, the total cost that will be incurred by the Government is Rs 14,595.04 crore for the period January 2020 to February 2021. The rate of Dearness Relief to pensioners/Family Pensioners is revised bi-annually, in accordance with the scheme of Dearness Allowance introduced for serving personnel of the Central government. The DA and DR will together cost the Government Rs 12,510 crore every year and will benefit about 48 lakh CG employees and about 65 lakh pensioners.
Recently, the Central government had also extended the disability compensation to all serving Central government staff. Therefore, if they are rendered disabled while discharging their duties and are retained in service, despite their disability, they will benefit from this compensation.
This will be of immense relief to those employed with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
