The union cabinet, chaired by prime minister Narendra Modi, has approved to release an additional instalment of Dearness Allowance (DA) to Central Government employees and Dearness Relief (DR) to pensioners w.e.f. 01.07.2023 representing an increase of 4% over the existing rate of 42% of the Basic Pay/Pension, to compensate against price rise. This increase is in accordance with the accepted formula, which is based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission.

The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief would be Rs.12,857 crore per annum. This will benefit about 48.67 lakh Central Government employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners.

Cabinet approves Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) of Rs 1,968.87 crore for railway employees

The union cabinet has approved Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) equivalent to 78 days’ wages for the financial year 2022-23 to all eligible non-gazetted Railway employees namely Track maintainer, Loco Pilots, Train Managers (Guards), Station Masters, Supervisors, Technicians, Technician Helpers, Pointsman, Ministerial Staff and other Group ‘C’ staff (excluding RPF/RPSF personnel).

In recognition of this excellent performance by the Railway staff, Union Government has approved payment of PLB of Rs 1968.87 crore to 11,07,346 railway employees. The performance of Railways in the year 2022-2023 was very good. Railways loaded a record cargo of 1509 Million Tonnes and carried nearly 6.5 Billion Passengers.

Many factors contributed to this record performance. These include improvement in infrastructure due to infusion of record Capex by the Government in Railways, efficiency in operations and better technology etc.

Payment of PLB will act as an incentive to motivate the Railway employees for working towards further improvement in performance.