Agartala, Sept 23: The state government is making continuous efforts to gradually reduce the gap in Dearness Allowance (DA) of employees, Finance Minister Pranajit Singha Roy informed the assembly on Tuesday.
Replying to a notice raised by MLA Gopal Roy, the minister said that keeping in view the financial resources, steps are being taken to reduce the DA gap. He added that the government is also working on a permanent solution to ensure regular promotions for employees, which are expected to be implemented in the near future.
Highlighting the measures already taken, the Finance Minister said that the fitment factor for aligning state government employees’ basic pay with the 7th Central Pay Commission was increased from 2.25 to 2.57. As a result, employees’ basic pay rose by 14.22 percent, which in turn ensures greater financial benefits whenever DA is revised.
He further recalled that during the Covid-19 period, the state government had announced DA/DR hikes for employees and pensioners and also introduced “Cash in lieu of LTC.” Earlier, there was no policy for regularizing fixed-pay employees even after 8–10 years of service across multiple posts.
The present government, however, amended the policy to ensure that employees with five years of continuous service across different posts become eligible for regularization, he said, adding that due to legal complexities, promotions had been stalled for a long time. To address this, the government introduced ad-hoc promotions, allowing many employees to benefit.
The minister also said that policies are being framed to extend the benefits of the Mukhyamantri Jan Arogya Yojana to all state government employees.
In addition, the government has increased the retirement age of TSR jawans from 58 to 60 years, enhanced ration money and dress allowance for TSR and police personnel, and tripled the monthly pension of home guards. Festival advance for employees has been increased from ₹5,000 to ₹20,000, while the festival grant has also been tripled compared to 2018.
