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