The employees are waiting with bated breath for the eagerly awaited 8th Pay Commission. Currently, employees receive remuneration as determined by the 7th Pay Commission (7th Pay Commission DA). There is a big update regarding the dearness allowances for employees. Expectedly, the employees will get a hefty salary hike under the dearness allowance. Currently, as per the 7th Pay Commission guidelines, 53 percent is being calculated as DA over the basic.
In simple words, inflation is increasing, and the government gives employees additional money according to the basic pay which is called dearness allowance. In this last year, there was 7 percent more addition in dearness allowance for the employees. Currently, Dearness Allowance is being added to the basic payable under the 7th pay commission (7th Pay Commission latest update) by making it 53 percent.
How much did dearness allowance increase
For employees, the government had announced a 3 percent hike in dearness allowance (DA hike) during Diwali last time. Prior it, there had been a hike of 4 percent in March 2024. Earlier, the dearness allowance was 46 percent, which has now risen to 50 percent and further up to 53 percent.
Combining Dearness Allowance with Basic Salary
3 Percent Hiked by Government This October in the Dearness Allowance. By a simple comparison, the Dearness Allowance stood at 50 percent in the previous months before being increased by 3 percent to reach the current figure of 53 percent. After this, talks have centered on whether now the DA would be merged with the basic pay; if so, it’s anticipated that such significant changes might be reflected in the salary of such a considerable number of government employees.
Why is it merged?
After increasing dearness allowance for employees to 53 percent, it was said that it would be merged with the basic salary (7th Pay Commission DA merge). This has happened earlier also. Previous attempts were made to initiate DA merging when DA on the salary of 6th Pay Commission went above 50 percent. Similar discussion has started again. The DA is believed to have crossed the 50 percent threshold.
In a much awaited good news from Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav in the country: the Minister Vaishnav stated there are discussions going on to merge it (Basic salary DA merge), but as of today, there is no decision from the government on this. These recommendations were made in the fifth and also the sixth commissions.
Merging of dearness allowance has been done earlier.
The decisions made in history are the bases for the discussions on merging dearness allowance. In 2004, when DA reached above 50 percent, it merged 50 percent DA into basic salary, however, those rules were revised later.
Salary structure changes
Now, as per the 7th Pay Commission, any employee should receive a minimum basic of Rs 18,000. Along with that, there is 53 percent dearness allowance on this. If this gets merged, basic salary structure will change. This will also influence other and allowances and allowances. This will change the structure of the salary.
