In a move that will bring relief to millions of Central government employees, the Centre is expected to announce a hike in salaries soon. The Central government is going to raise the Dearness Allowance (DA) and Fitment Factor, which would ensure a substantial increase in monthly incomes for the government employees, according to reports. However, an official announcement on this is awaited.
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The DA is revised twice a year, in January and July, in order to help Central government employees keep up with rising inflationary pressures. Reports indicate that with the increase in the fitment factor, the minimum basic pay of government employees will rise from Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000.
The Dearness Allowance, which is calculated as a percentage of the basic salary, is revised periodically to account for inflation and changes in the cost of living. The current DA stands at 42 percent, and the new announcement is expected to raise it by another 4 percentage points. The DA was previously hiked in January 2023, when it was raised by 4 percentage points.
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The Fitment Factor, which determines the multiplication factor used to determine salaries based on the revised pay scale, is also expected to witness a positive change. A higher Fitment Factor will lead to an increase in the minimum and maximum pay levels, benefiting employees across all pay grades. The current minimum fitment factor is 2.57, with many Central government employees asking for the fitment factor to be raised to 3.68. The fitment factor recommended by the 6th Pay Commission was 1.86 times. Once implemented, the new fitment factor can considerably boost salaries.
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Multiple state governments over the past six months have already hiked DA and/or Dearness Relief (DR) for state government employees as well as pensioners in response to rising costs. States like Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, among others, raised pay factors for their employees and pensioners.
