7th Pay Commission latest news: Odisha employees demand DA from July 2019

Bhubaneswar: The employees of Odisha secretariat on Monday requested Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to grant Dearness Allowance (DA) with effect from 01 July 2019 instead of 01 January 2020.

The employees under the aegis of Odisha Secretariat Employees’ Federation submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister.

The Federation has demanded grant of 5% DA with effect from 01.07.2019 instead of 01.01.2020.

Last week, the Odisha government hiked DA of its employees by five per cent. The enhanced DA would be given to the state government employees with retrospective effect from January 1, 2020.

“Government employees across the State covered under ORSP Rule 2017 have been deeply shocked to learn that government have released additional dose of DA at the rate of 5% by enhancing the existing rate from 12 to 17% with effect from 01.01.2020. In principle the State government have decided to adopt the rate of DA and date of its effect announced by the government of India from time to time since 1978-79,” said the memorandum.

It said when the Government f India have released the same 5% additional DA dose for its employees with effect from 1 July 2019,  the present decision of the State government to release same dose of DA after 6 months is a sheer deviation from the DA principle followed by the state government for the last four decades.  

“The present decision of the state government to release DA dose after 6 month on the plea of resource constraints has not gone down well with the employees as they have sacrificed a lot for improvement of financial condition of the State which includes abolition of lakhs of posts, withdrawal of leave surrender benefits, payment of professionals,” said the Federation in the memorandum.

Earlier, the state government approved 10 percent arrear of the 7th Pay Commission to be paid to the government employees.