7th Pay Commission: Central government employees may soon get a good news regarding their salaries, as the Centre is likely to announce a 4 per cent hike in dearness allowance (DA) in March 2024, according to media reports.
After the 4% DA hike, dearness allowance and dearness relief will increase to 50 per cent.
The quantum of hike in DA and dearness relief (DR) is decided by the central government on the basis of the All-India CPI-IW data.
The 12-month average of the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) stood at 392.83. As per this, DA is coming to 50.26 per cent of the basic pay.
DA is given to government employees, while DR is given to pensioners. DA and DR are hiked twice a year — January and July.
In the last hike in October 2023, the DA was increased by 4 per cent to 46 per cent. Given the current inflation rate, the next DA hike is expected to be 4 per cent.
According to the official data, there are 47.58 lakh central government employees and 69.76 lakh pensioners. After the upcoming DA hike, these employees and pensioners will be benefitted.
Formula For central government employees:
Dearness Allowance per cent = ((Average of AICPI (Base Year 2001=100) for the past 12 months -115.76)/115.76) *100
AICPI stands for All India Consumer Price Index.
Formula For public sector (central government) employees:
Dearness Allowance per cent = ((Average of AICPI (Base Year 2016=100) for the past 3 months -126.33)/126.33) *100.
