There is a reason to smile for around 15 lakh government employees, including teachers, as the Uttar Pradesh government announced to double their House Rent Allowances (HRA) and City Compensatory Allowances (CCA). The enhanced package will be given to the state government employees from August.

This and other decisions were taken at a cabinet meeting in lucknow on Tuesday, which was Chaired by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. 

The cabinet also approved recommendation of the state level pay commission committee.

Finance minister Rajesh Agarwal said that as per recommendations of Seventh Pay Commission, HRA and CCA of the employees was raised by 20 per cent in 2016. The government had set up a committee to review Seventh Pay Commission which had given its report to the government. “Acting on the advise of GB Patanaik Committee, the government decided to double the HRA and CA of state employees,” the Finance minister said.

Agarwal said that the government will bear an additional expenditure of Rs 2,223 crore after the hike in allownaces.

The HRA of employees is divided in three categories – Category A contains 15 cities with population in exccess of five lakh, Category B comprises 121 cities with population between five lakh to 50,000 and Category C for cities with population less than 50,000. In the case of CCA, the hike would be between Rs 340 and Rs 900, for which the state would bear an additional burden of Rs 185 crore.

There are four categories in CCA. The first having only three cities namely Kanpur, lucknow and Noida, second have cities like Varanasi, Meerut, Agra, Allahabad, Ghaziabad, Agra and others, while the third category has cities like Moradabad, Aligarh, Bareilly, Gorakhpur and others, while the last segment includes all remaining cities.

There are  8.5 lakh state employees, 5.50 lakh teachers and one lakh non-teaching employees in the state who are paid from the state exchequer.

Under the Seventh Pay Commission notified by the Centre from January 1, 2016, the state government has to give basic and DA as per recommendation, but for other allowances, they could consider their own system.

In another decision, the state government decided to bring an ordinance to provide reservation to divyangs (handicapped) and dependents of freedom fighters and martyrs in jobs of UP Public Service Commission(UPPSC).

As per the decision, the government proposed 4 per cent quota for these categories in jobs under the UPPSC. 

The government also amended the rule for appointment of fireman in Fire department. Earlier minimum qualification was high school for appointment of fireman, which has now been hiked to Intermediate at par with police constables. The cabinet also approved the Bundelkhand package announced by the Centre which will be applicable till 2021-22. The state government asked for Rs 4714.64 crore against which the Centre approved Rs 917.20 crore.  “This money was released in  March 2018. Besides, a project worth Rs 18.75 crore was approved to facilitate irrigation projects from Ken river,” government spokesman Shrikant Sharma said. The spokesman said that the fund would be utilized in building infrastructure in seven districts of Bundelkhand namely Jhansi, llaitpur, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Chitrakut, Mahoba and Banda. Focus would be drought relief by providing piped water to villages. Sharma also declared that the government sanctioned 100 hand pumps each for legislators (both Vidhan Sabha and Vidhan Parishad). The 50,300 hand pumps will be installed for which the government sanctioned Rs 226.35 crore.