The Centre on Saturday said a document doing rounds on social media saying dearness allowance and dearness relief for central government employees and pensioners will be restored from July 2021 is fake.
In a tweet, the Finance Ministry said that it has not issued the office memorandum (OM) doing rounds on social media and it is fake.
The document, issued in the name of Finance Secretary TV Somnathan, said that dearness allowance and dearness relief frozen during COVID-19 crisis will be resumed from July 1, 2021. "The additional instalments of dearness allowance and dearness relief due from 1st July, 2020 and 1st Jan 2021 shall be paid in three instalments," it said.
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In April last year, the government had decided to put on hold increment in dearness allowance for 50 lakh central government employees and 61 lakh pensioners till July 2021 due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Earlier today, opposition Congress demanded immediate release of dearness allowance to government employees, including armed forces personnel. Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said the government should not be insensitive towards its employees and armed forces, and not play jokes with them at a time when salaries are decreasing and inflation is rising.
In a tweet in Hindi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said it is a crime to "loot" Rs 37,500 crore from soldiers, government employees and pensioners.
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