CHENNAI: With an eye on assembly elections scheduled for next year, Chief Minister MK Stalin on Monday made a slew of announcements, including a 2 percent hike in dearness allowance for the State government employees.
The nine announcements made in the assembly would cost the state exchequer more than Rs 5,000 crores.
The dearness allowance for the State government employees, Stalin said, would be hiked by 2% on par with the recent hike effected by the union government with retrospective effect from January 1, 2025.
This would cost an additional expenditure of Rs.1,252 crore to the State exchequer and would benefit around 16 lakh government employees, teachers, pensioners and family pensioners.
Stalin said that the ex-gratia given to C and D categories of pensioners-- all categories of family pensioners--would be hiked from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. By this measure, 4.71 lakh pensioners and family pensioners would benefit, and this would cost an additional expenditure of Rs 24 crore.
Further, the CM said that as announced in the 2025-'26 budget the Earned Leave Surrender System would be restored and the government employees could cash in by surrendering up to 15 days of earned leave from April 1, 2026. Now, considering the requests from the employees, this Earned Leave Surrender System will be enforced from October 1. The CM said this measure would benefit around eight lakh government employees and teachers, and it would cost the government exchequer Rs.3,561 crore per annum.
The festival advance, Stalin added, to the government employees and teachers would be doubled (from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000), and this would benefit eight lakh employees and teachers.
The education advance for government employees stands hiked from this year. The educational advance for children of government employees who seek to pursue vocational education, the advance has been increased to Rs one lakh. For those who seek to pursue polytechnic courses, the advance has been hiked to Rs 50,000.
Stalin said so far, the male and female government employees were getting a marriage advance of Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000 respectively. From now on, this would be hiked manifold. A sum of Rs five lakh would be granted as marriage expenses irrespective of the gender.
The festival advance would be hiked from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 6,000. This would benefit around 52,000 pensioners, and this measure would cost an additional expenditure of Rs 10 crore to the state exchequer, Stalin said.
The CM also said at present, the period of maternity leave is not counted towards the probation period of the women employees and due to this, the promotion and service seniority of thousands of women employees have been affected. Henceforth, maternity leave will be counted towards the probation period.
No assurance on old pension scheme
Stalin however failed to give any assurance on reverting to the old pension scheme, which has been a vital demand of employees for the past many years. Instead, the CM, apparently, indicated that a decision on this issue will be taken within a few months by advancing the deadline for the committee headed by IAS officer Gagandeep Singh Bedi, which is studying the Old Pension Scheme, the Contributory Pension Scheme and the Unified Pension Scheme introduced by the union government.
This committee, which was formed in February, has been directed to submit its report in nine months (by October). Now it will be directed to submit the report by September 30.
The Tamil Nadu Secretariat Association (TANSA) welcomed the announcements made by the Chief Minister. When pointed out that there is no announcement about the reversal of the old pension scheme, TANSA president G Venkatesan told TNIE that since the government has set a deadline for the report of the committee, the government employees are expecting that their demand would be fulfilled.
