The Ministry of Finance has said that no order regarding resumption of dearness allowance (DA) for central government employees and dearness relief (DR) for central government pensioners from 1 July has been issued.

Sharing a picture of an “office memorandum” that talked of the resumption of DA and DR from next month, the Finance Ministry said, “A document is doing rounds on social media claiming resumption of DA to Central Government employees & Dearness Relief to Central Government pensioners from July 2021. This OM is #FAKE. No such OM has been issued by GOI.”

Earlier, various media portals carried the news that the DA and DR of the Central government employees will be hiked from July 1 as has been announced in the Parliament. Reports also claimed that the Central government in the Parliament had said that the pending DA and DR revisions will resume from July 1, 2021. However, the Ministry of Finance has now called it fake and refuted such claims. 

Central government employees and pensioners have not received the three instalments of their DA and DR from January last in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier, the Centre had said that it will clear the 18-month arrears of the central government employees and pensioners soon.

The clarification by Finance Ministry comes on a day when the central government was scheduled to hold a meeting to decide on the pending arrears. Officials of the National Council of Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM) and the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) were expected to take a decision on the matter based on the recommendation of the 7th Pay Commission.

The pending DA and DR arrears from January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, are due to be paid to millions of public sector workers and pensioners. The DA hike due to central government employees and DR hike for pensioners have been not been revised since January 1, 2020, as the three instalments due on the above dates remain frozen in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the Congress on Saturday slammed the Centre over the delay in restoration of DA to 115 lakh central government employees and demanded its immediate release. In a statement, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi attacked the Centre and said that it is a crime to “loot” Rs 37,500 crore from soldiers, government employees and pensioners.

“Even in the Covid epidemic, instead of increasing the morale of 113 lakh employees engaged in the service of the country, the central government is trying to snatch their hard-earned money,” the former Congress chief said in a Tweet in Hindi.