PC: ABP News
Ahead of the festive season, the central government on Wednesday decided to increase dearness allowance for employees by 4 percent to 46 percent of basic pay and give 78 days' salary as a bonus for non-military employees.
Briefing journalists about the cabinet decisions, Information, and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said that the increase in dearness allowance and dearness relief will benefit 48.67 lakh central government employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners respectively.
PC:LegalRaasta.com
The release of additional installments of Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) will be applicable from July 1, 2023. DA and DR are given twice a year to employees and pensioners respectively to compensate for the price rise.
The combined impact on the exchequer due to both DA and DR will be Rs 12,857 crore per year. There was an increase of 4 percent in DA and DR in March this year and September last year.
The DA and DR hike is effective from January 1 and July 1. Thakur also informed that railway employees will get a bonus equal to their 78 days' salary, which will benefit over 11.07 lakh non-gazetted employees of the national transporter.
This decision will benefit track maintainers, loco pilots, train managers (guards), station masters, supervisors, technicians, technician helpers, pointsmen, ministerial staff, and other Group 'C' staff, except RPF and RPSF personnel.
PC: The Indian Express
Thakur said payment of productivity-linked bonus (PLB) to railway employees is expected to cost the exchequer Rs 1,968.87 crore.
In recognition of the excellent performance of Railway employees, the Central Government has approved payment of PLB of Rs 1,968.87 crore to 11,07,346 Railway employees.
"The performance of the Railways in the year 2022-2023 was very good. Railways loaded a record freight of 1,509 million tonnes and carried about 6.5 billion (650 crore) passengers," an official statement said.
