DA hike for TN govt employees advanced to Jan 1, 2022: CM Stalin

Chennai

Chief Minister MK Stalin, on Tuesday, made 13 new announcements for government employees and teachers.

“The DA for government employees and pensioners was to be hiked from April 1 next year, but following demands, we decided to implement the hike from January 1 itself. The announcement will benefit 16 lakh government employees and result in additional expenditure of Rs 620 crore for three months from January to March and Rs 6,480 per annum,” said Stalin, in the announcements made under Rule 110 of the Tamil Nadu Assembly Rules.

Stalin also said that the retirement age of Anganwadi workers would be increased from 58 to 60, thus benefitting 29,137 Anganwadi cooks and 24,576 helpers.

The incentives given for government employees based on their education qualification was suspended in 2020. To encourage them to work better, the State will now provide incentives to them based on Union government’s guidelines. The vacant junior assistant posts in government schools will be filled through TNPSC. Also, no government employee will be suspended on their last day of work. Considering the demand of staff who protested against the government in 2016, 2017 and 2019, the days on which they protested will be considered as their working days.

Steps will be taken to bring back teachers who were transferred during their protests and priority will be given to them via counselling. Disciplinary action taken against teachers at the time of protests will also be discontinued and if promotion was affected that too will be set right.

Guidelines will be issued to clear discrepancies in providing jobs to wards of government employees after their death. The age limit for wards of government employees under the health insurance scheme will be relaxed and a help desk will be established to assist govt employees to clear doubts regarding the scheme. As the number of admissions of students to government schools has increased, teachers will be recruited according to the teacher-student ratio.