7th Pay Commission updates: DA, DR, arrears and 'night duty allowance' for railways' employees—All central government employees, pensioners need to know

After putting central government employees and pensioners in a state of confusion over their pay and allowances, the Modi government has recently made several announcements benefiting these employees. In the most important development, the wait for lakhs of central government employees for Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) will come to an end on July as informed buy Minister for State for Finance, Anurag Thakur. 

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DA updates  

The Minister for State for Finance had said the Central government employees will get full benefits of dearness allowance starting July 1, with all the three pending installments being restored prospectively.  

"As and when the decision to release the future installments of Dearness Allowance due from 01.07.2021 is taken, the rates of DA as effective from 01.01.2020, 01.07.2020 and 01.01. 2021 will be restored prospectively and will be subsumed in the cumulative revised rates effective from 01.07.2021," Thakur had told Rajya Sabha in a written reply. 

The three installments of dearness allowance for central government employees and DR for pensioners, due on January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021, were frozen in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision now to restore it from July, 2021 would benefit about 50 lakh central government employees and more than 65 lakh pensioners.  

How arrears will be affected 

Now, since any increase in Dearness Allowance will only be effective from July 1, it means the employees would not get any arrears on non-revision of DA for previous period. At present, central government employees are getting DA of 17 per cent.  

Recovery of Night Duty Allowance of central government employees in Railways 

Meanwhile, in another development related to the central government employees, the Railway management has written a letter to the Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT) asking Centre to stop recovery of the Night Duty Allowance given to those central government employees in the Indian Railways who were given this allowance before the Centre tweaked Night Duty Allowance rule. Speaking on the development, Anoop Sharma, General Secretary — Delhi Zone, Northern Railways, said that the Railways has stopped recovery of the Night Duty Allowance being given to its employees before the Centre changed 7th CPC (central pay commission) Night Duty Allowance rule and Rs 43,600 ceiling was imposed. Sharma said that they have raised their demand that in case the Indian Railways is not paying Night Duty Allowance to its employees, then it should not ask its employees to come for duty at night.