Come 1 April, the state government employees would be entitled to get four per cent increment in Dearness Allowance (DA) as announced by the chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the state Assembly in the recently-concluded Budget Session, a notification to this effect issued by the state secretariat at Nabanna on Tuesday.

With this hike in DA, state employees would now be getting an increment of 18 per cent of the DA, which however, was still to bridge the gap of 35 per cent of DA that the central government employees are getting.

Advertisement

Meanwhile, the hearing on the DA case, which is still pending in the Supreme Court, had been deferred till April, when the top court would hear the case.

The recent hike in government employees’ DA, however, had not gone down well with the left affiliated employees’ union, a section of which had already given a statewide call of cease-work for three hours at all government departments from 7-9 April.

The notification issued today said that besides all government employees, teachers of state-aided schools, non-teaching staff, employees of panchayat, civic bodies too would be eligible to get the hike in DA.