7th Pay Commission news: Government employees get this advantage, Dearness allowance hiked; 10 key takeaways

7th Pay Commission hike: A big advantage came to central government employees on Wednesday. This will go a long way in bringing a little relief for these staffers who are waiting for a fitment factor based hike in minimum salary to Rs 26000, but which has churned nightmares for them. Still, 7th Pay commission salary based hike has brought this windfall of a 2 pct hike in dearness allowance. Modi government cleared dearness allowance hike to 7 pct from 5 pct earlier. Check 10 key takeaways of 7th pay commission dearness allowance:

1. Dearness allowance of 11 million employees and pensioners hiked to 7 per cent. 

2. Dearness Allowance hike will benefit about 48.41 lakh central government employees and 61.17 lakh pensioners. 

3. Dearness Allowance was fixed at 5 per cent earlier. 

4. Dearness allowance hike will be effective from January 1, 2018. 

5. This hike in dearness allowance is as per the accepted formula that is based on the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.

6. An official statement said, "Cabinet has given the approval to release an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners from January 1, 2018." 

7. DA hike represents an increase of 2 per cent over the existing rate of 5 per cent of the Basic Pay/Pension.

8. Dearness allowance was hiked to compensate government employees for price rise.

9. The combined impact of Dearness allowance on the exchequer on account of both DA and DR would be Rs 6,077.72 crore per annum.

10. The impact would be of Rs 7,090.68 crore in 2018-19 (for a period of 14 months from January 2018 to February, 2019.)