7th Pay Commission DA Hike: AICPI number will be released on the last working day of every month for calculation of CPI for industrial workers. The event calendar for this has already been released. Accordingly, the January CPI number was released on February 29.
7th Pay Commission DA Hike: Dearness Allowance (DA) of central employees is 50 percent. This is applicable from January 2024. The next update will be applicable from July 2024. This approval will be received by September 2024. But, for this it is necessary that the AICPI index numbers be between January and June 2024. These numbers will decide how much the dearness allowance of central employees will increase. Where will the calculations start? Will the dearness allowance (DA hike) which was zero (0) at 50 percent actually change or will the calculation continue beyond 50. All these questions will definitely be in the minds of central government employees. But, their answer will have to wait till 31 July 2024. Because, the number coming on July 31 will decide how much the next DA Hike will increase. Let us understand how…
Dearness allowance is decided by AICPI numbers
Dearness allowance for central employees is decided by AICPI index i.e. CPI(IW). The Labor Bureau issues it on the last working day of every month. However, this data is delayed by one month. For example, the data for January comes at the end of February. The index numbers decide how much the dearness allowance will increase. A formula has been given for determining dearness allowance. For Central Government employees, the formula is [(Average of All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) of last 12 months – 115.76)/115.76]×100. In this the bureau collects data on many items. On the basis of this the index number is decided.
Labor Bureau released calendar
For calculation of CPI for industrial workers, AICPI number will be released on the last working day of every month. The event calendar for this has already been released. According to this, the CPI number for January was released on 29 February. The CPI number for February was to be released on March 28. But, it is getting delayed. Now the next CPI i.e. the number for March will be released on 30th April. At the same time, after this the April number will be released on 31st May. Then on 28th June the May numbers will come and on 31st July the June numbers will be released. This number will decide the increase in dearness allowance for the next six months.
Delay in releasing February numbers
Labor Bureau has released the AICPI index number for January 2024 on 28 February. But, the February number was to be released on March 28, which has not been released yet. If we look at the current situation, till January the CPI (IW) number is at 138.9 points. Due to this, dearness allowance has increased to 50.84 percent. This will be counted as 51 percent. According to estimates, this figure may reach 51.42 in February. However, this will not see much change. To know the actual number of dearness allowance, we will have to wait for July 31. Because, only then will we know how much the dearness allowance has increased on the basis of 6 months CPI (IW) numbers. The numbers to be released on July 31 will decide whether dearness allowance will increase by 3 percent, 4 percent or more.
If zero happens then when will it happen?
Experts clearly believe that it is not yet clear whether dearness allowance will be reduced to zero or not. Only when the final numbers come in July, the situation will be clear whether it will be reduced to zero or the calculation will continue beyond 50. It will completely depend on the government as to how and from where the dearness allowance will be calculated.
Salary will increase by Rs 9000
If the calculation of dearness allowance starts from 0 from July, then the salary of central employees will increase by Rs 9000. This increase will be calculated on the minimum salary. If the basic salary of a central employee is Rs 18000, then his salary will increase to Rs 27000. Similarly, if the salary of an employee is Rs 25000, then his salary will increase by Rs 12500. This will happen because, once the dearness allowance is cancelled, it will be merged into the basic salary. However, the last time dearness allowance was reduced to zero was on January 1, 2016. At that time the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission were implemented.
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