7th Pay Commission: Centre to pay govt employees up to Rs 2,18,200 as DA arrears

The Central Government is now set to announce the Dearness Allowance arrears of government employees. According to reports, Central government employees including the pensioners would soon get Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) benefits under the 7th Pay Commission (7th CPC), which were halted since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country. The decision on the DA payout will be taken by the Union Cabinet may in its next meeting.

The DA arrear amount to be paid could vary between Rs 11,880 to Rs 37,554 for Level-1 Central government employees. It could go up to between Rs 1,44,200 to Rs 2,18,200 for employees in Level-13. It must also be noted that the Cabinet Council has made a proposal to pay the DA arrears in a single settlement. With this, the employees will receive their DA, which has been on hold for 18 months, at once. The Centre hands out DA and DR twice a year to compensate employees, pensioners. However, the government kept the payment on hold in May 2020, due to the pandemic.

Earlier, some unconfirmed reports suggested that the employees would get the benefits from July this year. However, it was refuted by the Ministry citing, "the viral order was fake". The Centre had restored the DA and Dearness Relief (DR) of Central government employees and pensioners to 31 per cent from 17 per cent earlier. The change was made with effect from October 2021. However, the employees are yet to get the arrears of the allowance.  According to media reports, the government will soon pay out the arrears in the DA.

What is DA/DR?

Dearness allowance is a compensation allowance to the central government employees and pensioners to meet their daily needs, amid price rise driven by inflation. The quantum of DA varies with each employee depending on their pay scale and current sector. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government had introduced a revision of 4% in January 2020. The revision of plans was halted because of the unprecedented impacts of a global health crisis. The government had previously informed that the revision would be resumed from July 1. DA and DR are revised twice a year - January and July. 

Image: PTI