7th Pay Commission Update: According to media reports, the government has recently announced an increase in the Dearness Allowance (DA) of central government employees in various departments. The government has increased the DA by 3% to 34%.
Several media reports also say that the central government employees can get another surprise this month. After DA, the government can also increase other allowances including House Rent Allowance (HRA) soon.
HRA may increase
The last hike in HRA was in July last year. At that time the government had also increased the DA to 28 percent. Now that the government has increased DA, then there are chances that it may also increase or revise the HRA. If the HRA is increased, then there can be a big increase in the salary of central government employees.
How HRA is decided
House Rent Allowance for government employees is determined by the category of the city in which they work. Basically there are three categories X, Y and Z. Class X employees are getting HRA at the rate of 27% of their basic salary. The Y category gets HRA at the rate of 18 to 20 percent. Whereas, Z category gets HRA at the rate of 9 to 10 per cent. This rate varies by the area and city.
How much HRA will increase?
According to media reports, the HRA of government employees may soon increase to 3 percent. Employees in X category cities may see a 3% hike in their HRA, while Y category cities may see a 2% hike in their allowances.
Apart from this, the HRA of employees in Z category cities can also increase by up to 1%. That is, the HRA of government employees will increase from 27% to 30%.
Source – 'Money Control'
