The Congress-led UPA Government today deferred a decision on hiking dearness allowance (DA) of central government employees to 80 percent from 72 percent at present.
Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari after the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh said 'the proposal on DA has been deferred as the Finance Minister was not present'.
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is presently on an official visit to Japan.
About 50 lakh employees and 30 lakh pensioners would have benefitted with an increase in dearness allowance. (ANI)
A hike in DA has been proposed with effect from January 1, 2013, according to sources.
The government had hiked DA to 72 per cent in September last year. The increase was with effect from July 1, 2012.
The Confederation of Central Government Employees has demanded merger of up to 50 per cent DA with the basic pay and setting up the seventh pay commission at the earliest.
As per the practice, the DA is merged with basic pay when it breaches the 50 per cent cap. This helps employees get higher allowances as those are paid as proportion to the basic pay.
