DA hike bonanza, Garib Kalyan scheme: What we know about Cabinet decisions

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The Union Cabinet on September 28 approved a hike of 4 percent in Dearness Allowance (DA) for 50 lakh employees and about 62 lakh pensioners of the central government.

The 4 percent hike takes the DA to 38 percent. The Finance Ministry said that the central government employees and pensioners will become entitled to higher amount of Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR), respectively, w.e.f. July 1, 2022.

Apart from that, the government also approved a proposal to extend the free food grain scheme for the poor by three more months. Under the scheme, nearly 800 million recipients identified under provisions of the National Food Security Act 2013 get 5 kg of grain free of cost.

This will cost more than $18 billion annually to the exchequer.

Moreover, the Cabinet also announced that it has approved Indian Railways’ proposal for the re-development of three major railway stations - New Delhi, Ahmedabad and CSMT, Mumbai.

The projects, which aim to modernise railways and ease travel, involve an investment of approximately Rs 10,000 crore, said Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw.

Further, the Union Minister noted that these projects are estimated to take 2.5 to 3.5 years to complete and will use modular technology. He also said that tenders for the projects should be out in 10 days.