In a good news to around 50 lakh government employees under the seventh pay commission, Modi government on Wednesday announced that the Dearness Allowance (DA) of central employees will be hiked by 2 per cent. With the new announcement the employees will now get 9 per cent DA based on their basic salary. The new DA will be implemented from July 1, 2018.

To elaborate it further, these employees will now witness an increase of Rs 350 to Rs 5,000 in their basic salary. DA has been calculated on the basic salary. Earlier, it was six per cent. The impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 6,112.20 crore per annum and Rs 4,074.80 crore in the financial year 2018-19 (8 months from July, 2018 to February, 2019).

The decision was taken at the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday.

“The Union Cabinet.has approved to release an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners w.e.f. July 01, 2018 representing an increase of 2 per cent over the existing rate of 7 per cent of the Basic Pay/Pension, to compensate for price rise,” the official press release read.

The hike will benefit about 48.41 lakh central government employees and 62.03 lakh pensioners. The increments have been as per the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission. Meanwhile, a certain section of employees in Bihar got a reason to cheer. A certain section of teachers was planning to go on strike over their various demands including implementation of 7th Pay Commission as soon as possible. However, paying heed to their demands, Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Modi has said that the state government has constituted a 3 member pay committee to look into the matter.

Modi also assured that both the teaching and non-teaching staff would get the revised pay as per the recommendations of the 7th pay commission.

HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar also said that the ministry’s budget was increased to Rs 1.10 lakh crore in 2018-19 from Rs 63,000 crore in 2013-14, an increase of 70 per cent. The minister assured that money would be no bar if Patna University submits a proposal for its overall development.