The Madhya Pradesh (MP) Government, led by Shivraj Singh Chouhan, is likely to hike the dearness allowance (DA) for the state-government employees and pensioners. According to media reports, it is speculated that the DA of state government employees will see an increase of five per cent. Apart from this, it is also reported that the dearness relief or DR for pensioners may also be hiked for government employees across the state. In this regard, the State’s finance department has prepared a proposal and has sent it to the chief minister’s office for further approval. Now, it is up to the chief minister to take a call on this development.
At present, the MP government employees get 12 per cent DA and if the proposal gets approved, almost seven lakh state-government employees are likely to benefit from this hike.
In 2020, when the previous government was in power, an announcement for five per cent increment in dearness allowance was made, which the later government had put on hold after coming to power, amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. This was of course met with much criticism by the opposition.
Recently, the Central government also announced a hike in dearness allowance for its employees, from 17 per cent to 28 per cent. A similar hike was announced by the Gujarat government, which increased the DA by 11 per cent for its state government employees effective from July 1.
