DA Hike: Will government employees get 18 months’ arrears of DA? Know new update

DA Hike: The government had frozen 3 instalments of dearness allowance/dearness relief for central employees and pensioners during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. After the pandemic ended, employee unions and employee representative bodies continued to press the Centre to release 18 months of arrears due on account of DA withheld during the pandemic.

This issue was also raised several times in the Parliament, but the Modi government said that it cannot pay the DA arrears to the employees due to economic instability.

Why did the government stop DA/DR hike during Covid-19?

When the first wave of COVID-19 hit the country in March 2020 , the government deferred the decision to hike DA and DR of central government employees and pensioners to ease the pressure on the financial situation. Subsequently, the DA-DR hike was stopped in three installments – January 2020, July 2020 and January 2021. This moratorium lasted for a total of 18 months.

Expectations of government employees and the attitude of the government

Given the improvement in the Corona situation, employees were hopeful that the government would release the 18-month pending DA arrears. Many times employee organizations also raised this demand. But whenever this question was asked in every Parliament session, the government gave the same answer – there is no plan to pay the arrears.

Recently in the Lok Sabha session, Minister of State in the Finance Ministry Pankaj Chaudhary reiterated the same thing in response to a question by MP Anand Bhadoria. He said that this step was taken to reduce the financial burden during the pandemic. At present, the government is not considering paying these dues.

He also said that during the pandemic, the government’s fiscal deficit had reached 9.2 percent in the financial year 2020-21. However, now it has come down to 4.4 percent in the budget estimate for the financial year 2025-26. Despite this, the government said that the DA-DR installments stopped at that time will not be given now.

What is the status of DA now?

Central government employees and pensioners receive DA-DR installments every 6 months. Currently, DA is at 55%. It is expected to increase by 3% to 58% in the upcoming revision period (July-December 2025). This revision is likely to be implemented around Diwali.