7th Pay Commission Update: After the Central government employees, now the railway employees are likely to get a hike in dearness allowance (DA).
The Indian Railways has asked its zonal offices to pay the allowances as per the decision of the Central government, informed News 18.
The report further said that according to the instruction issued by the Railways Ministry, DA will be paid to Railways employees with the revised rates. The Central government’s latest move will directly benefit about 14 lakh employees as well as pensioners. The report also mentioned that the revised rates would be paid by the end of April.
It is important for the Railways employees to know that the decision from the ministry has been communicated through a letter on behalf of the Deputy Director, Railway Board, Jai Kumar, to all the zones & production units on Tuesday. It must be noted that the revision of Dearness Allowance was delayed for a year and a half because of the pandemic.
The Dearness Allowance is basically a salary element that is given to the employees to help them and pacify the effects of rising inflation. Moreover, the salary of government employees is revised in January and July – every year.
But the dearness allowance differs from employee to employee and at times it is decided by whether the employee works in an urban, semi-urban or rural area.
The Union Cabinet on March 30 had approved the increase in DA for central government employees and pensioners by 3% from Jan 1, 2022. This increased the DA from the previous 31% of basic pay to 34%.
The decision on DA was taken during a cabinet meeting chaired by PM Narendra Modi to approve the release of an additional installment of dearness allowance according to the recommendations of the 7th pay commission.
In a statement, the Finance Ministry told that the combined impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 9,544.50 crore per year. However, the decision will benefit approximately 47.68 lakh Central Government employees & 68.62 lakh pensioners.
