AITUC flays DA freeze by govt

The All India Trade Union Congress on Friday protested against the government's move to freeze dearness allowance, terming it as an "arbitrary decision".

It urged the government to immediately withdraw the "anti labour decision".

"AITUC protests against the arbitrary decision of the BJP led NDA Government to freeze the Dearness Allowance (DA) due to the Central Government Employees and DR (dearness relief) due to the Pensioners," an AITUC statement said.

AITUC opposes the arbitrary and drastic decision taken by the government against its own employees and pensioners, it added.

Taking shelter under the umbrella of COVID-19, every day the government is taking one decision or the other to attack the working class which is already in deep crisis due to the lockdown, it said.

The Union Cabinet had in March 2020 approved releasing 4 per cent additional DA to the central government employees and pensioners in accordance with the increase in All India Consumer Price Index (Workers).

Instead of issuing an order to implement the decision, the Ministry of Finance issued an order on April 23 freezing DA of central government employees numbering 48 lakh (including armed forces) and 65 lakh pensioners, which includes 60 per cent ex-servicemen, the trade union said.

The government is looking to save around Rs 50,000 crore by not hiking DA for 18 months, but why is it not withdrawing any of the tax concessions, including the recently reduced corporate tax which benefitted big corporates to the tune of Rs 1.45 lakh crore, the AITUC said.

The government has in the last five-and-a-half years written off corporate loans worth Rs 7.7 lakh crores, it claimed.

Above all, there are more than Rs 13 lakh crore of pending loans to be recovered from these corporates, it added.

The government has got no programme to curtail the price rise of essential commodities, and instead it is freezing DA of employees and pensioners, it said.