7th Pay Commission: In a move that will help significantly increase the salaries of its state employees and pensioners, the Gujarat government has announced a 4 percent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR). Not only this, the government has also increased the contribution to the National Pension Scheme (NPS) for employees, and has announced to calculate LTC cash conversion for 10 cumulative leaves based on the revised pay scales of the 7th Pay Commission.
“With the latest DA hike, the dearness allowance of state government employees will now increase to 46 per cent, which was earlier 42 per cent,” Gujarat government's official press release said.
The statement further said that DA has been increased from July 1, 2023 and the employees will be given arrears of the last eight months. “The decision to increase DA will benefit approximately 4.45 lakh state government employees and 4.63 lakh pensioners,” the release said.
The government said that the difference of 8 months DA from July 1, 2023 to February 2024 will be divided in three installments along with the salaries of the employees.
“The differential amount for the period between July 2023 and September 2023 will be paid with the salary of March 2024, while the outstanding amount for October to December 2023 will be distributed with the salary of April 2024. Additionally, the arrears of dearness allowance for January and February 2024 will be included in the salaries of the employees for May 2024,” it said.
NPS contribution increased
Gujarat government has also increased its contribution to NPS for its employees from 10 percent to 15 percent. However, state employees will continue to contribute 10 percent as before.
ltc cash conversion
The Gujarat government said it will calculate LTC cash conversion of employees for 10 cumulative leaves on the revised pay scale of the Seventh Pay Commission. Earlier it was calculated on the basis of the pay scale of the Sixth Pay Commission.