7th Pay Commission: Gujarat Raises DA Of State Govt Employees By 11%

Dearness Allowance Hike in Gujrat: This DA revision will be extended to 9.61 lakh state government and panchayat employees, and 4.5 lakh pensioners.

New Delhi: In what is good news for government employees and pensioners, the Gujarat government has announced an 11 percent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) with retrospective effect from July 1.

After the proposed hike, the new DA rate will be 28 percent, up from 17 percent of basic salary, and was at par with the one being provided to central government staffers and pensioners.

When will employees get the DA hike?

The new DA will reflect in the salary of September. July arrears would be paid in October and those of August in January next year.

"The Union government, in July, raised DA for its employees from 17 percent to 28 percent. Since the state government usually follows Central DA rates and does revisions accordingly, we too decided to hike the DA from 17 percent to 28 percent, to be effective from July 1," Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said, according to PTI.

This DA revision will be extended to 9.61 lakh state government and panchayat employees, and 4.5 lakh pensioners. All those employees under the 7th Pay Commission will benefit from this hike. The hike will cost the state exchequer Rs378 crore every month.

In July, the Union finance ministry had issued an order to implement the Cabinet decision to hike Dearness Allowance for central government employees to 28 percent from 1 July. The Union Cabinet had approved an 11 percentage point hike in DA and Dearness Relief (DR) for central government employees and pensioners with effect from 1 July. This will benefit more than 48 lakh central government employees, and 65 lakh pensioners.

Apart from Gujarat, other states including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, and Kashmir have already proposed the hike in employee and pensioners DA.