Centre’s Freeze on Dearness Allowance, Relief Hike Draws Flak From Congress

Party leaders specifically targeted the government for going ahead with “vanity projects” like the Central Vista project and bullet trains, even as it paused the DA-DR hike for common employees.

New Delhi: In a video message, senior Congress leaders, including former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi, P. Chidambaram and Manish Tewari, have lashed out at the Union government for freezing the hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR).

The Union government, in March, had announced a 4% hike in DA for thousands of central government employees and pensioners, but backed out in light of the financial crisis arising out of the coronavirus pandemic. While announcing the rollback on Thursday, the Union finance ministry claimed that by freezing DA-DR until July, 2021, it may save Rs 37, 350 crore in the financial years 2020/2 and 2021/22. It said that no arrears would be paid either.

Soon after, several employees’ unions and opposition members criticised it for being insensitive and inhumane at a time when many government employees were already been forced to donate one day’s salary to the PM CARES Fund and might be experiencing a cash crunch in the future.

On Saturday, Congress leaders specifically targeted the Union government for going ahead with “vanity projects” like the Central Vista project and bullet trains, even as it paused the DA-DR hike for common employees.

Also read: Finance Ministry Freezes Increment on DA, DR for Central Govt Employees, Pensioners

“I sincerely believe it is not necessary at this stage to impose hardships on government servants and also on the armed forces people. We should be on the side of people whose Dearness Allowances are being cut,” said the 87-year-old two-term Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Rahul Gandhi, who had earlier called the move “inhuman and insensitive” hit out at the Union government for continuing with wasteful expenditure.

“You are building a central vista at the same time. So either you are not doing these extravagant expenditures…But you are taking money from the middle class, not giving it to the poor, and you are spending it on your central vista,” said the Wayanad MP.

Former finance minister P. Chidambaram said that extravagant projects could be put to halt to support government employees. “We can make the point that when you have not cut back expenditure on bullet train, on central vista development…those are the programmes which should first be put on halt, before you halt people’s DA,” he said.

Around Rs 20,000 crore has been earmarked for the Central Vista project, which includes a complete revamping of the parliament complex. Rs 5,600 crore has also been allotted for the bullet train project between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and is scheduled to be completed by 2022 to mark the 75th independence day.