Wednesday, 30 OCTOBER 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
In a Deepawali gift for thousands of State government employees, the Uttarakhand government released Deepawali bonus and ordered a three per cent hike in the Dearness Allowance (DA) of its employees on Tuesday. The orders will benefit more than two lakh government employees and pensioners in the State.
The DA allowance of the employees has been increased from the present 50 per cent to 53 per cent of their basic salary. The increased DA will be applicable from July 1, 2024 and the employees will get revised DA from July 1 to September 31, 2024 as arrear while the increased DA will be given regularly from October 1, 2024. It means that the employees will get three months of revised DA as arrear in this month’s salary.
In another gift to the employees, the State government announced Deepawali bonus to the non-gazetted employees up-to the grade pay of Rs 4,200. The bonus would be interim not linked to the productivity and would be of 30 days not exceeding Rs 6,907.89. The casual/ daily wage earners working in different departments for a period of minimum three years would also get a bonus of Rs 1,184.
The order of increase of three per cent would be applicable to all employees of the State government, aided teaching institutes, workers of the local bodies and the recipients of the University Grants Commission (UGC) scales. However the order will not be applicable to the judges of High Court, chairman and members of Uttarakhand Public Service Commission (UkPSC) and Public Undertaking Corporations in respect of whom separate orders will have to be issued by respective departments. The increase in the DA would put an additional burden of about Rs 600 crore on the State exchequer. The salaries of the employees would witness an increase of Rs 1,000 to Rs 9,000 after the increase in DA. After the recent increase in the DA of the Central government employees, the State government employees were waiting anxiously for the DA hike by the Uttarakhand government.
