Early Diwali For Assam Government Employees As CM Himanta Biswa Sarma Announces 4% DA Hike

The festival of light Diwali has come early for the government employees of Assam. The Assam government today announced a big Diwali gift for the lakhs of state government employees. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state government employees will get a 4 per cent hike in the Dearness Allowance. With this hike, the DA now stands at 46 per cent.

"As a Deepawali gift, the state cabinet has approved a 4% Dearness Allowance (DA) for our state government employees. With this increase, the total DA for state government employees in Assam now stands at 46%," said the Chief Minister.

Assam has around five lakh government emloyees who will benefit from the move. Apart from the government employees, retired employees will also benefit from the move. 

The hike in the dearness allowances comes after the Central government announced to hike the DA for its employees last month. On October 18, the Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners with effect from 01.07.2023 representing an increase of 4% over the existing rate of 42% of the Basic Pay/Pension.

This increase was in accordance with the accepted formula, which is based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission. The combined impact on the Central government on account of both Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief was estimated at Rs12,857 crore per annum. The move benefited about 48.67 lakh Central Government employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners.