The Union Cabinet on Thursday hiked dearness allowance and dearness relief by 3 per cent to 31 per cent to benefit 47.14 lakh Central Government of India employees and 68.62 lakh pensioners.

This was informed by Minister of Information & Broadcasting Anurag Singh Thakur.

This decision to hike the allowance will put an annual burden of Rs 9,488 crore on the exchequer.

Earlier in July, the government had restored the dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) and increased the rate of allowance from 17 per cent to 28 per cent.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Union Government had frozen the three additional instalments of the DA and DR, which were due from January 1, 2020, July 1, 2020, and January 1, 2021.