The Centre is likely to hike the dearness allowance (DA) by 2 per cent to 4 per cent for its about 50 lakh employees and 58 lakh pensioners later this month. Dearness allowance and dearness relief are provided to employees and pensioners to neutralise the impact of inflation on their earnings.
The labour unions, however, are not happy with the proposed hike saying it would not be able to offset the real impact of price rise. “The dearness allowance as per the agreed formula by the Centre works out to be 2 per cent which would be effected from January 1, 2017,” Confederation of Central Government Employees’ President KKN Kutty told PTI.
However, Kutty expressed dissatisfaction over such a ‘meagre’ hike saying that the consumer price index for industrial workers (CPI-IW) which is an agreed benchmark for increasing dearness allowance is far from reality.
He said that there is difference between the quantum of price rise of commodities ascertained by the labour Bureau and the Ministry of Agriculture. CPI-IW is an imaginary number due to poor quality of data collection by labour Bureau and it is far from reality, he claimed.