Agartala, July 14 (IANS): In a bid to pacify its aggrieved employees seeking central government pay scales, the Tripura government on Thursday announced an additional four per cent dearness allowance (DA) for its 209,000 employees and pension holders.
"In spite of the state government facing serious financial crisis, the government has released additional four per cent of DA for the employees and pensioners," state Finance Minister Bhanulal Saha told reporters after a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Manik Sarkar.
He said to provide the DA and lumpsum increase in wages for the fixed pay, contingent workers and part-time employees, the additional annual spending from the government exchequer would be Rs 134.40 crore.
"Over 209,000 government employees and pensioners would get the new instalments of DA from this month," the minister said.
Employees of public sector undertakings and autonomous bodies will also be benefited.
State government employees and pensioners had long been demanding from the state government that their DA be equal to that of central government employees.
With this new instalment, the DA of state government employees and pensioners rose to 83 per cent, while central government employees are getting allowance at 125 per cent.
Saha, who is also information and cultural affairs minister, said that implementation of the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission for the state government employees would be considered after the central government took the final decision on the issue.
"The state government had received Rs 500 crore less amount in last financial year (2015-16) from the Union government despite its obligation and we apprehend that this financial year (2016-17), we may also get Rs 1,100 crore less fund from the central government," he added.
Education Minister Tapan Chakraborty said that in the meeting, the cabinet also decided to recruit 5,856 school teachers through TET (Teachers Eligibility Test) by December this year.
A case has been pending with the Supreme Court since last year about the recruitment of 10,323 government school teachers.
The apex court in December last year stayed a Tripura High Court May 2015 order to terminate the jobs of these teachers, on grounds of irregularities in their recruitment, and allowed them to continue until the final disposal of the case.