7th Pay Commission: Big hike in basic pay on the cards for govt employees! DA will start from ‘ZERO’ after THIS revision
7th Pay Commission News: The government hiked dearness allowance (DA) for over 1 crore employees and pensioners by 4% for the first half of 2024. With this hike, the DA ceiling hit 50% of the basic pay, triggering speculation about the merger of this allowance into the basic salary.
In 2004, the DA was merged into the basic salary of government employees when the allowance touched 50%-mark after the recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission. However, later 6th and 7th Pay Commissions did not recommend any such measure.
Moreover, government officials, reacting to media reports following the last DA hike announced in March, stated that there would be no automatic merger of DA into basic pay at this point, citing reasons for their decision.
Also read: 7th Pay Commission: Post DA hike to 50%, these key allowances for govt employees up by 25% | All you need to know
Several employee organisations have long been demanding that, after reaching a 50% dearness allowance threshold, it should be merged into the basic pay, as was done previously. Experts also believe that the government may merge the dearness allowance into basic pay starting from July 2024. They argue that the DA currently stands at 50% after the January hike and has not breached the 50% level. However, after the July raise, the DA will exceed 50% of the basic pay level. According to these experts, an announcement regarding the DA-basic pay merger can be made after the new government is formed at the Centre in June 2024. After the DA is merged into the basic pay, employees’ dearness allowance will again start from zero.
The DA for employees and Dearness Relief (DR) for pensioners are calculated based on the All-India Consumer Price Index (AICPI). The government
Read more on financialexpress.com
