7th Pay Commission: Govt employees' DA hike likely before Holi!

Dearness Allowance is provided to the central government employees to offset the inflationary impact on their salary. Under the 7th Pay Commission, the government revises Dearness Allowance twice a year – in January and July. DA also varies depending upon whether they are located in urban, semi-urban, or the rural sector.

If the government decides to provide a DA increment then it will benefit more than 1 crore government employees and pensions - 48 lakh employees and 65 lakh pensioners.

Despite COVID pandemic, the government had increased DA of these employees from 28 percent to 31 percent in October last year.

However, even as reports suggest an increase in DA this month, there is no official announcement from the government in this regard yet.

Central government employees are, for long, demanding for increasing their fitment factor from current 2.57 percent to 3.68 percent. If the government increases the fitment factor, the minimum salary of the employees will go up byRs 8,000 - from Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000 per month.

Under 7th CPC, DA for the central government employees is calculated as:

Dearness Allowance percentage = ((Average of AICPI (Base Year 2001=100) for the past 12 months -115.76)/115.76) x 100. Here, AICPI stands for All-India Consumer Price Index.