Dearness Allowance: Government employees may soon get a big gift. There is speculation that this time the government can release the DA money for 18 months which was stopped during the Corona period. The government had frozen the DA from January 2020 to June 2021.
New Delhi. Lakhs of government employees of the country are going to get a big gift. The government can now release the money of dearness allowance (DA) frozen during the Corona period. In the disaster of the pandemic, from the year 2020 to 2021, the government had frozen the DA money for 18 months. Employee organizations demanded this many times, but this time it is expected that the government can give a gift to its employees. This is because this time the employee organizations have sent their recommendation to PM Modi along with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
This time, for the 18 months’ pending DA, Shiv Gopal Mishra, Secretary of the Joint Advisory Machinery National Council of Central Employees (Employees Side), has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that the government employees have performed their duties well during the Corona period and now they should be paid the withheld DA.
How much DA is pending
The government increases dearness allowance twice every year. Once in January and second in July. In 2020, economic challenges arose due to the corona epidemic and then DA was frozen three times. In the letter sent to PM Modi, employee organizations have raised 14 demands and this also includes the request to release the 18 months’ pending DA.
Proposal was also sent to the Finance Minister
Earlier in January, Mukesh Singh, General Secretary of Bharatiya Pratiksha Mazdoor Sangh, wrote a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urging to release the 18 months’ DA frozen between January 2020 and June 2021. He also appealed to the government for the contribution and sacrifice of the employees during the Corona period.
A heart breaking statement came in the Lok Sabha
Earlier last year, Union Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary had said in the Lok Sabha that the decision to stop the DA of employees during the pandemic was taken to reduce the economic burden on the country. The country’s fiscal deficit is still running in double digits. Therefore, it is not possible to release the stopped DA of the employees.