The Centre on Thursday announced that additional dearness allowance (DA) due to the central government employees from January 1, 2020, will not be paid due to the COVID-19 crisis. It also announced the freezing of dearness relief to pensioners from January 1, 2020.
Theorder signed by Additional Secretary Annie George Mathew also said that arrearswill also not be paid till July next year. Dearness allowance and dearnessrelief at current rates will continue to be paid, said the order.
The proposal was discussed by the government to defer payment of dearness allowance for some time and utilize the money to fund the fight against COVID-19, the order said.
The Union Cabinet had last month decided to raise the DA by four percentage points, from the existing 17 percent to 21 percent of the basic pay or pension of employees to compensate for price rise.
But formal orders for raising the DA were never issuedafter Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered the national lockdown within afortnight of the cabinet decision.
The political leadership has already taken a 30 percent pay cut to give a message to conserve funds.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet colleagues had recently gone for a 30 percent pay cut for all ministers and all Members of Parliament (MPs) also. President Ram Nath Kovind and Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu had opted for the pay cuts soon after.