Central government employee unions have formally urged the Union Finance Ministry and the Cabinet Secretary to clear a Dearness Allowance (DA) revision from July 2026 and to triple the festival bonus calculation ceiling from ₹7,000 to ₹21,000 before Dussehra on 20 October.
The push comes from two parallel representations. The Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers wrote to the Secretary, Department of Expenditure, seeking early notification of the DA and Dearness Relief (DR) revision due from 1 July 2026, so arrears can appear in employees’ pay slips before the festive window. Based on AICPI-IW data up to May 2026, the July revision is expected to add 3 percentage points, taking DA from 60% to about 63%.
The second demand concerns the festival bonus. On 27 August 2026, Shiv Gopal Mishra, Secretary of the NC-JCM Staff Side, wrote to the Cabinet Secretary asking that this year’s bonus for central government staff be calculated at a ₹21,000 wage ceiling rather than ₹7,000. The letter states, “At present the Minimum Wage announced by the Central Government is ₹21,000”, and argues that the Payment of Bonus Act framework now needs to track that figure.
Mishra wrote, “Since Dussehra Festival is nearing and the Government will be issuing orders for Payment of PLB/ Bonus/Adhoc Bonus, it is requested that… the Bonus Payable Ceiling for the Central Government Employees may be enhanced from ₹7,000 to ₹21,000.”
The ask traces back to the 49th Meeting of the National Council (JCM) on 11 May 2026, where the Staff Side had raised the issue. The Official Side had then indicated the demand could be considered only after a formal revision of the ceiling under the Payment of Bonus Act 1965 (now the Code on Wages 2019).
Under the current rules, most Group C and non-gazetted Group B staff on the ad-hoc (non-PLB) bonus receive 30 days of pay capped at a ₹7,000 wage, which works out to a maximum of ₹6,908. Railway, postal, EPFO and defence-production staff on the PLB get up to 78 days, with the railways’ top payout at ₹17,951. A ₹21,000 ceiling would roughly triple the ad-hoc payout for about 30 lakh non-gazetted employees from Level 1 to Level 8.
The government has not accepted the demand so far. Officials have maintained that the statutory ceiling can move only after a formal legal revision, keeping the ₹7,000 figure in force. Both the DA notification and the festival bonus order are typically issued the week before Dussehra, making mid-October the next window for a Cabinet decision.
