7th Pay Commission: Central minister clarifies on DA arrears in Rajya Sabha, check his reply

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7th Pay Commission: The Central government on Tuesday gave a reply on a question related to the release of 18-month dearness allowance of the Central government employees. The reply was given in response to a query in the Question Hour as to why the government hasn’t released the remaining arrears of lakhs of employees. The Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Choudhary gave the reply in Parliament. This is significant as the Central government has been forced to provide a reply to DA as part of the 7th Pay Commission hike. 

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The employees of the Central government have been demanding from the government to release the 18-month arrears since 2020. 

The minister, replying to the concerns, said the government decided to not release three tranches of the dearness allowance for pensioners due to the coronavirus pandemic. He told the House that the government had been experiencing financial stress due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown. This was due to the fact that the government was investing in welfare programmes to ease the mayhem wreaked by the coronavirus on people’s lives and livelihoods. 

Due to this, they couldn’t release the money. 

Since the financial distress continued even after the coronavirus pandemic dissipated, the government hasn’t released the DA dues of the Central government employees. 

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The Central government had increased the DA allowance to 38 percent, in September 2022. However, the Central government employees are waiting for an 18-month pending DA.

This demand has been continuing for the last 18 months — between January 2020 and June 2021. Several employee unions have submitted memoranda to the government but the DA wasn’t released. 

The government, however, hasn’t made any promise regarding the release of the pending DA. 

The employees are adamant on the demand arguing that during the pandemic, they reported to work, putting their lives in peril.