Cabinet likely to approve hike in DA for Central govt staff this week

New Delhi, Mar 10: The Union Cabinet is likely to approve a hike in dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) for Central government employees and pensioners, respectively, this week, according to members of government staff union forums.

The revision in DA and DR is likely to be on the Cabinet agenda as one of the two biannual hikes in the two allowances is usually announced in March while the other is announced in October ahead of Diwali.

The DA and DR hike, that is approved in March, is implemented retrospectively with effect from January.

"The hike is expected to be announced in the next meeting of the Union Cabinet," Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers President Rupak Sarkar said.

He said that the dearness allowance hike would probably be 2 per cent as it is benchmarked with inflation based on the consumer price index for industrial workers which has eased this year compared to last year when DA was hiked by 3 per cent in October and 4 per cent in March.