7th Pay Commission: DA hike for Central government employees likely to be announced in September

livemint.com:

central government employees are eagerly waiting for the July DA hike. The announcement is likely to be made soon. There is no official confirmation on the DA hike announcement date, but media reports are speculating that the decision is likely to be announced in the month of September 2023.

As the retail inflation in the country has hit a 15-month-high level in July, the government is expected to increase the dearness allowance (DA) by 3% points to 45%, as per the reports. The DA hike will be effective from July 1, 2023. The dearness allowance for Central government employees and pensioners is calculated on the basis of the latest Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) brought out by the Labour Bureau every month.

“The CPI-IW for June 2023 was released on July 31, 2023. We are demanding a four percentage point hike in dearness allowance. But the dearness allowance hike works out to be a little over three percentage points.

The government does not factor in hiking DA beyond the decimal point. Thus DA is likely to be increased by three percentage points to 45 per cent," reported PTI quoting All India Railwaymen Federation General Secretary Shiva Gopal Mishra as saying recently. Mishra further said the expenditure department of the finance ministry will formulate a proposal to hike DA along with its revenue implication and will put up the proposal before the Union Cabinet for approval, and then the DA hike announcement will be made.

Currently, over one crore central government employees and pensioners are getting a 42% dearness allowance. While central government employees get DA, pensioners are given DR. DA and DR are hiked twice a year — January and July.When Last Time DA was Hiked? Last time, the DA was