Left Front government today announced five per cent increase in the dearness allowance (DA) for its employees and pensioners in Tripura, a minister said.
The decision to hike the DA was taken today in the meeting of the council of ministers, Finance Minister Badal Chowdhury told reporters.
"We would be happy if we could have paid DA in Centre's rate," Chowdhury said.
The state is reeling under fund crisis but "despite our constraints, we could manage to pay five per cent DA for about 2,11,000 employees and pensioners," he said.
The whole exercise would involve an additional expenditure of over Rs 157 crore per annum.
Chowdhury said, with the payment of five per cent DA, the gap between the Central and state government employees went down to 33 per cent from 38 per cent.
