7th Pay Commission: Cabinet Lifts Ban On Dearness Allowance & Likely To See 11% Hike

According to today's decision, the moratorium on all three installments with effect from 1 January 2020, 1 July 2020 and 1 January 2021 has been removed.

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New Delhi: The cabinet has decided to lift the ban on dearness allowance which was imposed last year when the Covid-19 first broke out. The three installments of DA for central government employees and DR for pensioners, which were due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021, were put on hold in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to today's decision, the moratorium on all three installments with effect from 1 January 2020, 1 July 2020 and 1 January 2021 has been removed. After the lifting of the moratorium, there will be a total increase of 11 percent in all three installments. 

The dearness allowance of the central government employees has been raised by 4 percent in January 2020, by 3 percent in June 2020, and by 4 percent in January this year. With an increase of 3 percent in July and the pending hike,  the DA for the central government likely to jump to nearly 28 percent.

The Union government is likely to restore the 7th pay commission Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief benefits by September now, according to media reports.

With the suspension of DA revision for around 1.5 years, the Centre has saved a total of Rs 37,530.08 crore funds that helped it to augment resources required to tackle the economic crisis caused due to the Coronavirus-induced lockdown.