The central government declared in March 2021 that central employees’ dearness allowance (DA) and pensioners’ dearness relief (DR) will be restored on July 1, 2021. Employees and employees will have to wait awhile due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced the National Council of JCM, the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), and the Ministry of Finance (Department of Expenditure) officials to delay their conference.
The conference was supposed to address the 7th Central Pay Commission matrix dispute, which had been preventing maximum benefits from being implemented. It will now take place in the last week of May 2021. Central employees and pensioners are now receiving a 17 percent dearness benefit, which may increase to 28 percent, resulting in a significant increase in the 7th CPC salary. Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance, had previously stated that the three instalments of dearness allowance will commence to be paid on July 1, 2021.
Anurag Thakur claimed in a report submitted to the Upper House of Parliament about the payment of DA that the three pending DA instalments of Central Government employees will be subsumed and that the modified DA rates will take effect on July 1, 2021.
The declaration by Thakur came as a huge comfort to the 52 lakh central government employees whose DA benefits have been frozen until June 2021. Around 50 lakh central government employees and more than 65 lakh pensioners will reap from the decision to restore DA starting in July 2021. Employees, on the other hand, will not be paid any arrears since their DA for the previous period is not revised.
Three overdue DA instalments from January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021 are yet to be modified. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the three instalments of DA are halted. Thakur said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha that once the decision is made to issue the future instalments of Dearness Allowance due on July 1, 2021, the rates of DA as of January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021 will be reinstated respectively and will be subsumed in the cumulative updated rates starting July 1, 2021.
