Grant of Interim Relief to West Bengal State government employees amounting to 10 percent of their band pay

Grant of Interim Relief to West Bengal State Government Employees Amounting to 10 % of their Band Pay.

After coming to power for the second time, the Mamata Banerjee led government on Friday announced a grant of interim relief to state government employees amounting to 10 percent of their band pay.

"In our first cabinet meeting, we have decided to provide a grant of interim relief to state government employees amounting to ten percent of the band pay drawn by them," said state Finance Minister Amit Mitra.

"This will be effective from July and will cover state employees, teachers, local government employees and pensioners," he said.

"The interim relief is small in nature but the net impact to the state exchequer will be around Rs.3,000 crore," said Banerjee.

The difference in dearness allowance for state employees compared to their central counterparts stands at 50 percent.

Banerjee had announced a 10 percent hike in dearness allowance for the state employees from January reducing the difference to 44 percent. Later in March, the centre hiked the allowance by another six percent.
The government in its first stint had announced the Sixth Pay Commission to review the pay structure of state government employees.

Central Employees DA release not discussed in cabinet meeting

Central Employees DA release not discussed in cabinet meeting

New Delhi: The release of Dearness Allowance (DA) did not figure in the Union Cabinet on Wednesday, despite media saying earlier that it would raise the issue in the meeting.



The cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, discussed only the controversial issue of land ordinance, which was allowed to lapse on August 31 at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi official residence, 7, Race Course Road (RCR) here.

“The Union Cabinet today gave its approval to an order issued by government on August 28 to extend the provisions of compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement available to farmers under the 2013 Land Acquisition Act to 13 other central laws as well,” a senior officer in the PMO said.
“The release of the Dearness Allowance (DA) was not discussed at all in the meeting,” the official told The Sen Times.

The government is likely to approve a hike in dearness allowance (DA) to 119 per cent from the existing 113 per cent, benefiting the around 30 lakh central government employees and 50 lakh pensioners including dependents.

“The average rate of retail inflation for industrial workers from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015 works out to be 6.77 per cent. Thus the Central government will hike dearness allowance for it employees by 6 per cent,” an official of Finance Ministry said.

He further said the Finance Ministry will put a Cabinet proposal later in this month for approval of 6 per cent dearness allowance hike from July 1 this year as the revised Consumer Price Index number for Industrial Workers for June was released by Labour Ministry on July 31.

With increase in DA, the pensioners will also gain as the benefit provided to them as dearness relief will be hiked to 119 per cent of pension.

The central government in April hiked dearness allowance by 6 percent to 113 percent of the central government employees and pensioners’ basic pay with effect from January.

The increase is in accordance with the accepted formula based on the recommendations of the 6th Central Pay Commission, an official statement had said.

The release further said the combined impact on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be of the order of Rs 6,762.24 crore per annum, and Rs 7,889.34 crore in the 2015-16 (for a period of 14 months from January 2015 to February 2016).

TST