DEAR ALL,
Referring to the post of Mr T Lakshminarayanan,it is intriguing as to how he states that pension being 50% of pay leads to DA also being 50% of DA. 50% of DA means what?Does he mean 50% of the DA on in-service salary or 50% of DA on Basic pension?Pension is 50% of the average emoluments drawn by employee during the last 10 months while in service and the rate of DA on pension cannot be half of 50% of the DA applicable for 50% of the Basic Pension.
For example, an employee getting a salary of Rs 4800 in July 1997 gets a DA slab of Rs 16.80 while a retired officer on a Basic Pension of Rs 4800 in July 1997 gets a DA per slab of Rs 13.66 only.Now let us take the case of an employee drawing a Basic Salary of Rs 8000 in August 1997 and a retired officer drawing a Basic Pension of Rs 8000 draw the same DA slab of Rs 18.40.Does not this situation constitute discrimination against the employees who retired before 1/8/1997?The concept of DA has been devised to compensate employees and retirees against increase in cost of living from time to time. So it has to be based on the amount of Basic Pay or Basic Pension uniformly. Pensioners do not have the privilege of lower cost of living compared to in-service employees.So I am sure that Mr Lakshminarayanan will recognize the fallacy in his view. The Appendix IV as followed by LIC for pre August 1997 retirees is unconstitutional and needs to be amended bringing the DR slabs on par with those adopted for in-service employees.With greetings,C H Mahadevan
