New Delhi :The Narendra Modi government had announced that central government employees (CGEE) and pensioners will get the full benefit of Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) effective July 1. This has created confusion among central government employees, though they are expected to get an 11 per cent increase in DA from the current level. At present, they are getting DA at 17 per cent after the government elected them to freeze their DA in the wake of the Covid 19 epidemic last year. 52 lakh central employees and 60 lakh pensioners of the country have been waiting for Dearness Allowance for a long time. The wait for these employees is coming to an end soon. The Central Government is going to put a hefty sum of money in their accounts.
The Government has already said in Parliament that dearness allowance will be resumed from 1st July, 2021. At present, this Dearness Allowance is available at the rate of 17 per cent, which may increase by 11 per cent. If this happens, the Central employees will get 28 per cent Dearness Allowance. The DA and DR of central employees and pensioners were withheld by the Central Government due to corona epidemic. Now, the Government has made it clear that on 1st July, 2021, these will be rolled back to new rates. Central employees and pensioners have not received Dearness Allowance of 1st January, 2020, 1st July, 2020 and 1st January, 2021 due to corona. From July 1, all central government employees will get full benefit of DA. They will also benefit from the increase in DA frozen from January to June 2021. This means that if dearness allowance increases from 17 to 28 per cent, the employees will also get the benefit of the increased 8 per cent. This was confirmed by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha last month. The Central Government has also raised the family pension ceiling for government pensioners a few days ago. Now the maximum limit of family pension has been raised to Rs 1.25 lakh per month. Earlier, the limit was Rs.45,000 per month. The Central Government has increased the ceiling on family pension by about two and a half times.
