Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday opposed theCentral government’s decision to cut back hike in dearness allowance ofgovernment employees and pensioners. Singh said that he did not think that atthis “stage such cuts were necessary”.
In a video message released by the Congress, Manmohan Singh,former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram andseveral other top leaders slammed the government over its decision.
Singh said, “We should be on the side of people whoseDA is being cut. I sincerely believe that it is not necessary that it is thestage to enforce hardship to government servants and armed forcespersonnel.”
The remarks of the Congress leaders came two days after theCentral government decided to freeze payment of additional instalment of DA toall its employees and dearness relief (DR) to pensioners falling due fromJanuary 1, 2020.
The decision comes after the Union Cabinet on March 14approved a four per cent hike in DA to 21 per cent in a bonanza for 1.13 croreCentral government employees and pensioners applicable from January, 2020costing the exchequer Rs 14,595 crore.
Rahul Gandhi also hit back at the government alleging thatthe government was not cutting back on extraneous expenditure.
“I see the problem is that you are building yourcentral vista at the same time. So either you are not sort of doing thisextraneous expenditure. You are taking money from the middle class, not givingmoney to the poor people and spending it on central vista,” Rahul Gandhisaid.
Chidambaram in his message said, “We can make the pointwhen we you have not cut back the expenditure on the bullet train and centralvista development. Those are the problems which should be put on halt beforeyou halt people’s dearness allowance.”
Congress MP Manish Tewari also opined that before thegovernment went around cutting everyone’s allowances and salaries, it shouldfirst set up an “expenditure rationalisation commission”.