7th Pay Commission: Meeting to discuss 18 month DA arrears later this month

New Delhi, Dec 15: On the 7th Pay Commission, the Central government may soon take a decision on the 18 month Dearness Allowance arrears. The DA currently stands at 31 per cent.

Prior to July this year the DA was at 17 per cent, which had been frozen in the year 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The government then decided to increase it to 28 per cent and subsequently to 31 per cent. The DA arrears between January 2020 and January 2021 has however not been received by the Central Government employees.

Reports suggest that a decision on the arrears may be taken during a meeting of the Cabinet secretary scheduled to be held later this month. The Centre had said that in July there is no plan to give DA arrears. However there has been a constant demand and a letter to this effect has been written to the Prime Minister as well.

While under the 7th Pay Commission, the government has given 31 per cent DA, the JCM Secretary, Shiv Gopal Mishra has been continuously demanding the DA arrears for the last 18 months.

There are a total of 48 lakh CG employees in the country. The Indian Pensioners' Forum had written to PM Narendra Modi in October that the decision to stop DR for pensioners is not right. The money is important for their livelihood, they had also said.

DA arrears of Level-1 employees range from Rs 11,880 to Rs 37,554. For Level-13 or Level-14, the DA arrears be Rs 1,44,200 and 2,18,200 respectively, Mishra had said.