Centre announces Rs 3,737 crore bonus for over 30 lakh govt employees by next week
Central Government Employees Bonus: Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the total financial implication of this bonus will be Rs 3,737 crores and it will be given in a single installment, through direct benefit transfer, before Vijayadashami.
In a bid to encourage spending during the festive season, the Centre on Wednesday decided to give Rs 3,737 crore as bonus to 30.67 lakh non-gazetted central government employees. The decision to give productivity-linked bonus and non-productivity-linked bonus for 2019-2020 was taken at the meeting of the Union Cabinet
Addressing a press conference, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar said the bonus would be given in a single installment through direct benefit transfer before Vijayadashami. “The bonus, to be given in a week’s time, will encourage the middle-class to spend and thus add to the demand in the economy,” Javadekar said.
Non-PLB or ad-hoc bonus is given to 13.70 lakh non-gazetted Central Government employees.
A total of 30.67 lakh employees would be benefited by the bonus announcement and total financial implication will be Rs 3,737 crore. #CabinetDecisions
TAGS:CabinetPrakash JavadekarUn
(2/2)https://t.co/Ut3mNXj2H4— PIB India (@PIB_India) October 21, 2020
Those who are set to benefit from this include 16.97 lakh non-gazetted employees of commercial establishments like railways, posts, defence, EPFO, ESIC etc. who will get PLB and the financial implication would be Rs 2,791 crore. Apart from them, 13.70 lakh non-gazetted central government employees will get non-PLB of Rs 946 crore, the government release said.
Payment of bonus to non-gazetted employees for their performance in the preceding year is usually made before Durga Puja/Dussehra season. The All India Railways Federation had called for a nationwide two-hour strike on October 22, demanding immediate disbursal of the bonus.
This comes after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman last week announced a Leave Travel Concession (LTC) voucher scheme, which can be availed by private sector employees as well, and a festival advance for government employees to spur consumption demand.
Under the LTC scheme, the employees would be required to spend three times the LTC fare component to purchase items that attract 12 per cent or more Goods and Services Tax (GST). What this effectively means is that if your fare component of LTC is Rs 40,000, you need to spend Rs 1.2 lakh on goods that fall in the 12% or more GST slab in order to save tax on Rs 40,000. Through the LTC consumption boost plan, the government expects a demand generation of Rs 28,000 crore in the economy.
Under the festival advance scheme, all central government employees will get interest-free advance of Rs 10,000 that will be recovered in 10 instalments. It will be given in the form of a pre-loaded RuPay card of the advance value. The government expects to disburse Rs 4,000 crore under the scheme by March 31.
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