7th Pay Commission: In an early Diwali gift for its employees, the Odisha government has announced a hike in dearness allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) for pensioners to 9 per cent from the earlier 7 per cent that will ensure a much happier festive season for all concerned. 

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The 2 per cent DA hike will be given to the employees and pensioners with retrospective effect from July 1, 2018. Along with the state government employees, work charged employees and the teachers and staff of fully-aided private colleges will also benefit from the hike.

Earlier, Haryana had also announced the hike in DA for its employees. While the state governments have been coming forward with the announcements of pay hike for its employees, the central government employees are yet to get a word of assurance from the authorities on their biggest demands even as the Centre has already cleared DA and DR for them recently.

The central government employees are hopeful that they will get the over and above 7th CPC pay hike before the elections. Several states are heading for polls in the next two months and the nation will undergo general election next year. There are about 48.41 lakh Central Government employees and 62.03 lakh pensioners. No government would like to make such a large vote bank unhappy. 

So, now, the pressure is mounting on the central government to consider the pay hike demand of the central government employees. The employees are getting the salary as per the fitment factor of 2.57 times, as recommended by the 7th pay commission. The Central government employees have been demanding the pay hike as per the fitment factor of 3.68 times which will set the minimum salary to Rs 26,000.

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Also, recently, a railway union has also warned the government that the staff will stop doing extra hours of work if their various demands including a pay hike is not met.