The Bihar government on Wednesday approved a 4 per cent increase in dearness allowance (DA) for state employees and dearness relief (DR) for pensioners. Chief minister Nitish Kumar made this decision during a cabinet meeting.
As per news agency PTI, employees in the state, under the 7th Pay Commission, currently receive a 42 per cent DA, that has been increased to 46 per cent.
The DA hike is effective from July 1, 2023, enabling employees to receive arrears for the period between July and October. Around 4.5 lakh Bihar state government employees will benefit from this decision, alongside about six lakh pensioners.
The increased DA will reflect in the December salaries, as per Live Hindustan, and employees will also receive arrears for the four-month period.
According to a Live Mint report, several states and union territories, including Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, have raised DA and DR during the festive season of Dussehra and Diwali.
Demand for special status
The cabinet also passed a resolution urging the Centre to grant special category status to Bihar, aiming to address the findings of the caste-based economic survey.
The survey revealed that approximately 94 lakh families, spanning all castes, are below the poverty line (BPL). In response to the survey, the state government plans to disburse various sums – ₹2 lakh distributed in installments to a family member for employment opportunities, ₹1 lakh to 63,850 homeless and landless families for land acquisition, ₹1.20 lakh for housing construction, ₹1.20 lakh for each of the 39 lakh families residing in huts, and ₹2 lakh for each of the most impoverished families to sustain their livelihoods.
Bihar to seek inclusion of quota policy in IXth Schedule
A day after announcing the raised quota for reserved categories in government employment and educational admissions, the Bihar state cabinet endorsed a proposal on Wednesday. The recommendation involves forwarding these amended reservation laws to the Centre for potential inclusion in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, S Siddharth, the additional chief secretary of the state said.
Explaining the rationale behind seeking increased quota inclusion in the Ninth Schedule, Siddharth clarified that by doing so, the laws, which raise reservations to 65 per cent in jobs and admissions, would be shielded from judicial review.
The Ninth Schedule of the Constitution comprises a list of both Central and state laws that are protected from legal challenges in courts. Back in 1992, the Supreme Court imposed a cap on reservations for backward classes at 50 per cent.