7th pay commision news: DA hike: In what comes as a huge relief to the central government employees, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday restored the proposal of giving them the Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) hike with effect from July 1, 2021.

Announcing the restoration and hike on Da, I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said that Union Cabinet hiked the Dearness Allowance from 17% to 28% for central government employees. “The Central government has decided to increase the dearness allowance for central government employees and pensioners by 11% to 28%,” said Thakur.

The development is a major relief for lakhs of central government employees who have been waiting for the announcement for months.

The move comes on the back of several media reports speculating that dearness allowance benefits under the Seventh Central Pay Commission (7th CPC) would be restored July.

Although the hike has been approved by the cabinet, it is not yet clear if central government employees will get the hiked DA benefit from September.

Worth mentioning here is that the Centre had frozen DA and DR of central government employees and pensioners last year keeping in view the fall in government revenue collection and rising spend on social welfare schemes after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As of now three instalments of DA were pending- 4% from January 1, 2020 to June 30 2020, 3% from July 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020, 4% from January 1, 2021 to June 30, 2021.

With the restoration of DA, central government employees are likely to see a big jump in their take-home salary, provident fund contribution and gratuity as well.

The existing rates of 17 percent DA/DR will continue to be paid till July 1, 2021. From that day onwards, the new rates of DA/DR will be restored ‘prospectively’. This means there will be no arrears paid for the difference between 21 percent and 17 percent that would have accumulated between  January 1, 2020 and July 1, 2021.

On June 27 this year, the Finance Ministry had clarified that no order regarding resumption of DA for the central government employees and DR for the central government pensioners from July 1 has been issued.

The ministry said that a document claiming the same was being circulated on social media.