The Dearness Allowance (DA) for Central Government employees and pensioners has been increased from 17% to 28%. This will be applicable from July 1, 2021, announced Union Minister Anurag Thakur after a cabinet discussion on the matter.

The meeting, which marks the second meet of the newly reshuffled cabinet, was chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi. 

The new Dearness allowance is kept at 28% which is an increase from the existing 17%. This means there will be a 11% increase in the current salary of the Central government employees. 

Also Read: 7th pay commission: Here’s how to calculate DA, DR hike

So, if an employee earns Rs 30,000 basic salary per month, his or her salary will increase by 11%, which will be a hike of Rs 3300. Other employees can similarly calculate their salary hike based on their basic pay.  

For the unversed, a calculation on inflation, Dearness Allowance is granted to all union government employees at a given rate depending upon the status of the economy.

In March 2020, the union government has increased the Dearness allowance from 17% to 21%, but the hike was soon halted due to financial crunches faced by the government after the onset COVID-19 pandemic.

Following this, the last three installments of Dearness Allowance, due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, were frozen by the government till further notice.

The central government had earlier increased the dearness allowance by 4% in January 2020, 3% in June 2020, and 4% in January 2021. According to the calculations, the total hike will become 28%.

There had been a lot of fake information related to DA allowance hike and restoration circulated on the internet in the past few months.

In June, a notification claiming that the Dearness Allowance of the Central Government employees will soon be resumed was widely circulated on social media. The notification said that the Dearness Allowance also called the Dearness Relief, which was temporarily stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will be resumed from July 1.

However, the finance ministry later clarified that the post that has caused a stir on the internet was fake and no such order was passed by the Centre.