Haryana freezes DA at current rate till July ’21

Haryana freezes DA at current rate till July ’21

Manvir.Saini@timesgroup.com

Chandigarh:  08.07.2020

The Haryana government on Monday ordered freezing of dearness allowance for 4.29 lakh government employees and pensioners till July 2021.

The decision come after the state government recently froze leave travel allowance (LTC) of its employees. “In view of the crisis arising out of Covid-19, it has been decided that additional instalment of dearness allowance payable to the Haryana government employees and dearness relief to the Haryana government pensioners, due from January 1, 2020 shall not be paid,” according to a circular released by the Haryana finance department on Monday evening.

Notably, the decision will on average cost a government employee in the range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 100,000 for the period of oneand-a-half year.

Haryana has passed a budget of Rs 142,343 crore this year in February. For the 2020-21Budget, a provision of Rs 36,012 crore was made for salary and pension of the state government employees. With the freeze on payment of DA, the Haryana government would save to the tune of Rs 3,600 crore after calculating DA/DR instalment of January 2020 at 4% and presumptive additional 4% instalments of July 2020 and January 2021.

There are three lakh government employees and around 1.2 lakh government pensioners in Haryana. The state government’s decision will adversely impact all of them but the worst affected would be the employees due to retire in the next three quarters. The Union government had similarly in April announced its decision to freeze DA of 1.13 crore central government employees, including defence personnel, civil and paramilitary employees.

The employee unions have termed the state government’s decision as a dictatorial order. “Initially, we contributed Rs 110 crore from our salaries. Then the government froze our LTC. Now this anti-employee diktat,” said Subhash Lamba, the president of Sarv Karamchari Sangh, an umbrella body of the state government employees. “In April, we had met the government and suggested it should to do away with the contract system and increase levies on corporate houses and big businessmen to recover its losses. We had even suggested the use of National Pension Scheme (NPS) funds for Covid relief or to meet expenses. But, this government always had an anti-employee mindset.”

‘WHAT DOES GOVT WANT TO PROVE?’

Senior leader and chief spokesperson of Congress Randeep Singh Surjewala demanded restoration of DA and described the state government’s decision as an inhuman diktat. “What does the Manohar Lal Khattar-led government want to prove by not giving the DA/DR of Haryana employees and pensioners within 100 days of presenting the budget?” he asked. Surjewala also described the BJP-JJP as “karamchari virodhi sangh”, saying people had already suffered blows of economic slowdown, coronavirus pandemic and inflation. “The anti-employee face of the BJP-JJP government stands fully exposed. An employee getting basic pay of Rs 30,000 per month would lose Rs 43,200 and an employee getting Rs 50,000 per month would not get the due installment of Rs 72,000, if we presume the same as 4% additional DA/DR for the subsequent period of 12 months also,” he added