Raipur: Members of the Indian State Pensioners Federation have announced to meet Former Congress President Rahul Gandhi during his visit to the state on February 3rd. The motive behind the meeting is to urge reconsideration in regards to the Dearness Allowance (DA)e given to pensioners in the state.
The pensioners claim that all states being ruled by Congress provide DA at 31 per cent whereas in Chhattisgarh the DA is funded at 17 per cent only. National General Secretary of Indian State Pensioners Federation and state president of Chattisgarh State Joint pensioners Federation Virendra Namdev has cited Mr Gandhi’s visit to the state as a prime chance for the federation to lay down their complaints.
The DA in the state was hiked by 5 per cent in September which came into effect from July 1st 2021. The hike from 12 per cent to 17 per cent was announced by CM Baghel. The hike impacted nearly 4 lakh govt employees and 1.25 lakh, pensioners. As per an official communication, the hike in the annual fiscal expenditure of the state would amount to Rs 1,020 crore.
The Dearness Allowance is a component of the salary which is some fixed percentage of the basic salary, aimed at hedging the impact of inflation. The govt pays this sum to employees of the public sector and as well as pensioners. Since DA is directly related to the cost of living it is different for different employees based on their location. By difference we mean, employees in the Urban sector, semi-urban sector or the rural sector and not by states.