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Lucknow. A very good news has come for lakhs of government employees and pensioners of Uttar Pradesh. Giving a big gift to its employees, the state government has increased the Dearness Allowance (DA) by 2 percent. After this new decision, now the dearness allowance of state employees has directly increased from 58 percent to 60 percent of their basic salary. Additional Chief Secretary of Finance Department, Deepak Kumar has also issued official orders regarding this important amendment.

Lakhs of employees and pensioners of entire Uttar Pradesh are going to get direct and big benefits from this big step of the government. Amidst the ever increasing inflation and high cost of living, this decision will provide huge relief to the employees. Let us tell you that dearness allowance is actually a special adjustment given keeping in mind the changes in lifestyle expenses, which the government gives to its employees and pensioners on top of their basic salary.

Efforts to reduce the impact of inflation

It is revised from time to time by the government, usually twice a year, to reduce the impact of inflation. This allowance is always calculated as a percentage of the basic salary. This simply means that the higher the DA percentage goes up, the bigger and more tangible increase will be seen in the ‘take home salary’ of employees across different pay scales. This 2% increase may seem modest on paper, but considering the huge workforce of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, it is a huge step forward. After this decision, there is going to be a huge financial burden of hundreds of crores of rupees annually on the state treasury.

There has already been an increase in many states

If seen, state governments generally adopt the same pattern in their DA revision, which the central government decides for its employees. The central government had earlier increased the dearness allowance of central employees. After this step of the Centre, the governments of many states like Bihar, Odisha and Tamil Nadu had also announced an increase equal to or close to this for the employees of their respective states. Now the decision of Uttar Pradesh government to increase DA to 60% is also a part of this bigger trend. The revised DA will be considered fully implemented from the due date as per the orders of the Finance Department.

Highlights of the announcement by Additional Chief Secretary Finance Deepak Kumar

Under this decision, full benefits of this increased DA will be given to state employees, employees of aided educational institutions, staff of local bodies and all the employees working on UGC pay scale.

This new and revised dearness allowance will be considered effective from January 1, 2026, that is, employees will get its benefit from the month of January itself. Now all eligible employees will be paid DA at the full rate of 60 percent of their basic salary.

Earlier the employees were getting DA at the rate of 58 percent, which has now been increased by 2 percent. The best thing is that this increased DA will be paid in cash along with the salary of May 2026, that is, the salary will be higher in the same month.

The arrears for the last four months from January 2026 to April 2026 will be deposited directly into the Employees Provident Fund (GPF) account. For those employees who have not opened a GPF account, this outstanding amount will be deposited safely in the form of NPS, PPF or National Savings Certificate (NSC).

In case of employees who are covered under the National Pension System (NPS), 10 percent of the total amount of arrears will be deposited in the Tier-1 pension account as employee contribution and 14 percent will be deposited as state government contribution.

Apart from this, all the employees who have been retired by January 1, 2026 or who are going to retire by June 30, 2026, will be paid the entire amount of arrears directly in the form of cash.

This welfare decision has brought happiness to the homes of lakhs of state employees, teachers and pensioners of the state. After increasing DA by the Central Government, now the UP Government has also given great relief to the employees by implementing this increase in the state at the same rate.