7th Pay Commission Latest News Today: The season of festivities has come early for the Central government employees as the Centre increased their Dearness Allowance and hiked their salary apart from announcing Diwali bonus to some other employees.
Last month, the Central government hiked the dearness relief (DR) for central government employees by 4% effective from July 1, 2022. With this, the DR has been hiked to 38% after a four percent raise. Apart from this, the Centre this week also approved payment of the Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days to railway employees for the financial year 2021-22.
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8th Pay Commission soon
Amid these announcements on payments, speculations are also rife that the Narendra Modi government is planning to set up the 8th Pay Commission for employees soon. The government employees must know that the Pay Commission was last set up on February 28, 2014 for the hike related to payment of Central government employees. According to the trends seen through the 5th, 6th, and 7th Pay Commissions, the general expectation is that the 8th Pay Commission would be constituted in 2023. However, nothing has been confirmed as of now by the Central government.
DA hiked by 4%
Ahead of Diwali festival, the Union Cabinet on September 28 hiked the dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief by 4 per cent effective July 1, 2022. The move from the government has benefitted over 41.85 lakh central government employees and 69.76 lakh pensioners.
Notably, the latest installment of DA and dearness relief (DR) is an increase of 4 per cent over the existing rate of 34 per cent of basic pay/pension.
The increase in the DA and DR is based on the percentage increase in 12 monthly average of All India Consumer Price Index for the period ending June, 2022.
The Central government said the impact of enhanced dearness allowance to the employees on the exchequer is estimated at Rs 6,591.36 crore per annum and Rs 4,394.24 crore in 2022-23 (8 months from July, 2022 to February, 2023).
Diwali bonus for railway employees
On October 12, the Central government approved the payment of Productivity-Linked Bonus, which is equivalent to 78 days of wages, to railway employees for the financial year 2021-2022. This comes as Diwali bonanza for the government employees. The Productivity-Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days of wages will be paid to non-gazetted railway employees, excluding RPF/RPSF personnel, for the financial year 2021-22.
With this move from the Railway Ministry, about 11.27 lakh non-gazetted railway employees are going to be benefitted from the decision. The financial implication of payment of 78 days’ PLB to railway employees has been estimated to be Rs 1,832.09 crore.
