The Gujarat government has announced an 11 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) for its employees and pensioners with retrospective effect from July 1. With this, the new DA rate will be 28 per cent, up from 17 per cent of basic salary, and this was at par with the one being provided to Central government staffers and pensioners.

The new DA will reflect in the salary of September. July arrears would be paid in October and those of August in January next year.

"The Union government, in July, raised DA for its employees from 17 per cent to 28 per cent. Since the state government usually follows Central DA rates and does revisions accordingly, we too decided to hike the DA from 17 per cent to 28 per cent, to be effective from July 1," Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel said, PTI reported.

According to a report in PTI, this DA revision will benefit some 9.61 lakh state government and panchayat employees, as well as 4.5 lakh pensioners covered under the 7th Pay Commission. The hike will cost the state exchequer ₹378 crore every month. 

In July, the Union Finance Ministry had issued an order to implement the Cabinet decision to hike Dearness Allowance for central government employees to 28% from 1 July.

The Union Cabinet had approved an 11 percentage point hike in DA and Dearness Relief (DR) for central government employees and pensioners with effect from 1 July, benefitting more than 48 lakh central government employees, and 65 lakh pensioners.

Other states which have hiked DA

Uttar Pradesh

Bihar 

Himachal Pradesh

Jammu and Kashmir