Yogi Adityanath govt scraps six categories of allowances for its employees, teachers in view of COVID-19 situation

The government has also cancelled some other allowances, including the one paid for promotion of e-governance in the secretariat, the report said.

Additional chief secretary, finance, Sanjiv Mittal has sent a circular dated May 12 in this regard to all the departments, added the report.

He said the decision has been taken in view of the decline in state government’s revenue due to Covid-19 situation, the report stated.

The state government hopes to save Rs1500 crore per annum with this move. Earlier it decided to scrap dearness allowance and dearness relief paid to its employees, teachers and pensioners from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 to save about Rs 10,500 crore in 2020-2021.

According to the Hindustan Times report, the other allowances cancelled include compensatory allowance (CCA), secretariat allowance, special allowance given to CB-CID, anti-corruption organisation, economic offences wing, vigilance establishment, security and special investigation wing, special allowance paid to junior engineers in all the departments, research allowance, orderly allowance and design allowance paid in the public works department along with investigation and planning and orderly allowance paid to officers and employees working with the irrigation department.

The state government reviewed the allowances that were not existing at the Centre and decided to scrap them to save money to deal with the current economic crisis.

“As the state government is committed for parity with the central government in payment of salaries and allowances to its employees and teachers, there is no justification to continue with the allowances when they do not exist at the centre. The state cabinet, therefore, decided to scrap all these allowances instead of deferring them,” the HT report quotes a senior officer as saying.