With the festive season round the corner, the Odisha government has decided to increase the dearness allowance (DA) for all state government employees and pensioners. With this increase, the employees will now receive DA at 28 per cent, up from 11 per cent earlier.
The State government has announced this increase terming it as a gift to all its employees. With this decision, four lakh regular state government employees and three and a half lakh pensioners will be impacted.
In the statement, the government has also said that it will clear the pending arrears from July 1, in cash in the month of October as the increased DA will be credited to employees in the month of October itself.
In another development, the state government, in its bid to extend more financial benefits to its employees in case of death while in service, has effected changes in the Group Insurance Scheme (GIS).
Under the revised plan, the employees in grade pay up to Rs 4,800, who were earlier paying Rs 7,500 for GIS, now have to pay Rs 20,000. The families of such employees, who were getting Rs 1.5 lakh in case of death, would now get Rs 4 lakh.
Similarly, the GIS payment for the staffers getting Rs 5,400 and above has been increased from Rs 12,000 to Rs 30,000. Their families would get Rs 6 lakh under the revised scheme instead of the earlier Rs 2.5 lakh.
The increased GIS amount will be deducted from the salaries of the employees in 10 instalments as before.
This apart, the state government has also increased the funeral allowance from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for both the grade pay.
