Central government employees and pensioners are expected to get double benefits this Diwali. Apart from the announcement of four per cent dearness allowance payable from July 1st, government employees can also be given arrears of 18 months during the corona transition. At present, dearness allowance is being received at the rate of 34 percent.
If there is an increase of 4 per cent, the DA/DR rate will be 38 per cent. For this, the Central Employees Organization is constantly under pressure on the government. The opposition is also attacking the central government regarding inflation. Apart from this, the central government employees have now raised the issue of old pension. In these circumstances, the central government can pacify its employees and pensioners for some time by giving DA / DR and 18 months arrears during the Corona period.
This trend has changed since few years.
Dearness allowance and dearness relief, these have been increasing every year from 1st January and 1st July. However, this trend has changed in the last few years. Now instead of the above date, there is a delay of several months in the release of allowances. The increase in DA which was to be done from July this year has not happened so far.
There is a lot of pressure from the central workers on the government to release the arrears. The Secretary of the National Council of Staff Side Shiv Gopal Mishra has written a letter to the Cabinet Secretary and Chairman of the National Council ‘JCM’ in this regard on August 18 itself. According to an official of the Employees Association, a report has been given to the government to issue arrears of DA / DR with effect from January 1, 2020 to July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021.
Government should prepare the mechanism – National Council
The Secretary and Members of the National Council of Staff Side are ready to discuss the method of release of arrears. He has asked the government that these arrears must be released. Even though some mechanism can be devised to issue it. In this regard, the employees’ organizations are ready to cooperate with the Central Government.
In his letter to the Cabinet Secretary, the JCM Secretary has referred to a decision given by the Supreme Court in February 2021. In this decision, the Supreme Court had said, due to economic crisis, the salary or pension of the employees can be temporarily stopped. It will have to be given back to the employees when the situation improves. This is the legal right of the workers. They should be paid according to the law.
The government saved 40000 crores like this
The central government had announced in early 2020 that government employees would not get DA/DR and other allowances. JCM member C. Sreekumar said, the Central Government had banned the DA / DR of government employees and pensioners under the guise of Kovid-19. At that time, the central government had saved Rs 40,000 crore by stopping the payment of 11 per cent DA of the workers. Employees organizations had suggested various options to the central government regarding the payment of 18 months arrears of central employees.
These included the one-time payment of arrears. Staff Side Secretary Shiv Gopal Mishra and other members had also told the government about the release of arrears that if it wants to discuss any other way, then the employee organizations are ready for that too. When the Central Government had announced to give DA after the Corona period, it had mentioned that from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, the rate of DA and DR would be considered as 17 percent only.
Allowance given at the rate of 28%
Union Minister Anurag Thakur had said, now dearness allowance will be available at the rate of 28 percent. At that time he did not say anything about the arrears. The meaning of the announcement of the Union Minister was that the rate of increased DA should be assumed to be 28 percent from July 1, 2021. According to this, between June 2021 and July 2021, there was a sudden 11 percent increase in DA, while no increase in DA rates was recorded in the period of one and a half years.
DA / DR was frozen from January 1, 2020 to July 1, 2021. This issue of arrears was raised by the representatives of the employees’ unions in the meeting of the JCM. On behalf of the staff side, the central government was told that it would have to pay the arrears of the workers. It cannot be stopped for long.
