Punjab announces 6% DA for govt staff, pensioners from February 1

Ruchika M Khanna
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 8

The Punjab Government today patted its back for announcing 6 per cent dearness allowance (DA) for 3.5 lakh employees and three lakh pensioners in the state. But this DA instalment, entailing a burden of Rs 720 crore on the exchequer, is unlikely to be paid immediately.

Employees have thus rejected the announcement, saying it is nothing more than a means to appease them before the General Election.

Punjab Civil Secretariat Staff Association president Sukhchain Singh Khera said  the announcement amounted to nothing. “At present, three instalments of DA are yet to be paid, besides arrears for 22 months on the unreleased DA. What is the use of making announcements, when the money is not to be paid immediately?” he said.

Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, however, maintained that this 6 per cent DA would be credited along with the next month’s salary. “We know the state of finances.

But we have stretched our limit to announce a massive 6 per cent DA, payable from February 1,” he said.

Employees are, however, sceptical and said considering the poor revenue collection and huge revenue deficit this year, it was unlikely that this instalment would be released any soon. It may be noted that three earlier announced instalments of DA are already pending towards employees and pensioners. These include 4 per cent DA announced in January 2017, 3 per cent in June 2017 and 3 per cent in January 2018.

Ever since taking over in March 2017, the Congress government has paid just one DA instalment of 6 per cent in June 2018. The total dues on account of DA amount to Rs 1,800 crore, while the arrears for unpaid DA stood around Rs 1,400 crore. The announcement of another DA of 6 per cent made today will together put the dues of employees towards the state government at Rs 3,920 crore.

Rejecting the announcement, employees associations, including members of the joint action committee of Punjab Civil Secretariat Association, said they had been demanding quick implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission; withdrawal of development tax; release of pending DA instalments and at least 50 per cent of the arrears. Sources said the government intended to credit the three pending DA instalments in Provident Fund accounts of employees, along with arrears of the new pay scales to be recommended by the Pay Commission.