Not necessary to impose hardships on govt servants by halting DA, DR amid Covid: Manmohan Singh
New Delhi/IBNS: In the wake of the Centre's decision to freeze the hike in Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief (DR) of government employees in view of the Covid-19, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday criticised the government asking it not to impose hardships on the government servants.
In a video message, Singh said, "I sincerely believe that it is not necessary at this stage to impose hardships on the government servants and also on the armed forces people."
As the pandemic virus has engulfed the country with number of cases surging in each day, the central government has freezed the DA, DR hike till July 2021 in view of the Covid which has left a deep negative impact on the country's economy.
As #COVID spreads, Modi Govt hurts 1.1cr Central Govt employees instead of providing relief. Withdrawing DA instead of cutting wasteful expenditure like Central Vista project is insensitive & inhumane. Former PM Dr. Manmohan Singh, Shri @RahulGandhi & others express deep concern. pic.twitter.com/M6WQ0tojxG
— Congress (@INCIndia) April 25, 2020
Joining Singh in the criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said, "I see the problem is that you (Centre) are building the central vista at the same time. So either you are not sort of doing this extravagant expenditures but you are taking away money from the middle class, not giving money to the poor people and spending on the central vista." (sic)
Former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader, P Chidambaram, felt the government should have concentrated on cutting the expenditure on "bullet train" and "central vista development" instead of halting DA and DR.
"You (Centre) have not cut back the expenditure on the bullet train, central vista development. Those are the programmes which should first be put on halt before halting people's Dearness Allowance," Chidambaram said.
