AGARTALA, March 26 (TIWN): On the eve of Holi festival, the central government hiked dearness allowance (DA) by 6%, benefiting over 1 crore central government employees and pensioners. The hike, which will cost the exchequer an additional Rs 14,724.74 crore annually, will take effect from January 1, 2016, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters after the meeting of the Union Cabinet which took the decision. The DA, which will benefit, 50 lakh central government employees and 58 lakh pensioners, will go up from the existing 119% to 125%. DA is paid as a portion of basic pay of employees to neutralise the impact of inflation. Pensioners get dearness relief. Even Mamata announced 10% DA for Govt employees from 1st January 2016: Is Tripura’s Manik Sarkar bold enough to take such decisions ? 5% dearness allowance (DA) for its 209,000 employees of Tripura and pension holders was just an insult. State government employees and pensioners had long been demanding from the state government that their DA be equal to that of central government employees. With this new installment, the DA of state government employees and pensioners rose to 74 percent, while central government employees are getting allowance at 125 percent.

The burden on exchequer would be Rs 6,795.5 core towards central government employees and Rs 7,929.24 crore towards pensioners during 2016-17, he said.

The central government revises DA twice in a year on the basis of one year average of retail inflation for industrial workers as per a pre-determined formula.

In September last year, DA was increased to 119% from 113% with effect from July 1, 2015.

In April last year, the government had hiked DA by 6 percentage points to 113% of the basic pay with effect from January 1, 2015.

The Tripura government's decision to provide 5 per cent dearness allowance to its employees has triggered resentment among all employees.

After Mamata’s lucrative announcement, here, the state government employees are thinking when will chief minister Manik Sarkar fulfill their long standing demands.

After long hue and cry for nine years, Sarkar announced grade pay as per central government from January last. The same grade pay was announced by the centre and other states way back in 2006. Now also there is a gap of 45 percent DA between the employees of state and central government employees. The employees affiliated to the ruling party CPI(M) like - TGEA and TGTEA make long speeches that the centre is not giving them money. All states of north east pay DA very close to central DA, the gap is 6 percent. Why Manik is not taking decision like Mamata is the only question piping out in most of the Employees mind nowadays.

70 percent of states of government employees are supporter of the ruling party. Every time, they blame the centre whether it is UPA, NDA and 13 finance commission.

When Sarkar, declared the  grade pay he assured that DA gap will be reduced  with centre. But on July last, only 6 percent DA was announced by the government. It shows, Sarkar is not willing to solve the long standing demands of the employees.