The Assam Cabinet has approved a 2-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR), lifting the rate from 58% to 60% and benefiting more than eight lakh state government employees and pensioners. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced the decision after a cabinet meeting held on June 5, 2026, the first since the state’s cabinet expansion.
The revised rates apply across the board: serving employees, pensioners, family pensioners, extraordinary pensioners, and compassionate family pensioners. According to reports, the enhanced payout will be reflected in employees’ June 2026 salaries, disbursed in July.
“The government remains committed to the welfare of its workforce and pensioners, recognising their contribution to the state’s development,” Sarma said, noting that employees and retirees continue to play an important role in Assam’s growth.
DA is paid to government employees to offset rising prices; DR does the same for pensioners. Both are revised periodically in line with inflation. The Assam move follows the Union Cabinet’s own 2% DA hike earlier in 2026, and sits alongside similar revisions by other states adjusting payouts to the cost of living. Retail inflation stood at 3.48% in April 2026, with food inflation at 4.20%, keeping pressure on household budgets.
The same cabinet sitting cleared other measures, including raising the MLA Local Area Development allocation from ₹1 crore to ₹1.5 crore per MLA for FY 2026-27, rising to ₹2 crore from FY 2027-28, and amendments to the Assam Secondary Education (Provincialised Schools) Service Rules governing Grade IV to Grade III promotions.
For HR and payroll teams across Assam’s public sector, the immediate task is recalculating gross pay and pension entitlements ahead of the July disbursement. The central government’s own July-December DA revision, expected to land around 3%, is the next data point employees’ associations will be tracking.
