Chandigarh, May 27
The Punjab Council of Ministers today approved the merger of Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief equal to 50 per cent of the basic pay, pension with pay, pension and treat this amount as Dearness Pay, Dearness Pension effective April 1, 2004 to its employees and pensioners on the Central pattern.
Disclosing this, a spokesman of the government said the amounts becoming due to the serving employees during the period of April 1 to June 30 would be credited to their GPF and payments due from July 1, 2004 would be made in cash. Pensioners, however, would get paid in cash. The merger of 50 per cent Dearness Allowance into pay would involve a financial liability of Rs 400 crore.
The council has also approved the summoning of the 7th session of 12th Vidhan Sabha on June 14.
The council also decided to give ex-post facto approval to implementation of ''Ashirwad'' scheme for 2003-04 to give assistance at the rate of Rs. 6,100 at the time of the marriage of girls below the poverty line and belonging to Scheduled Caste and Christian families, including widows and divorcees, on their re-marriage and in respect of Below Poverty Line widow families.
The council solicited approval of Rs 6.04 crore on Plan side during current year from January 1 to cover 9,900 beneficiaries at the rate of approximately 3,300 beneficiaries, per month and approval of an amount of Rs 24.40 crore on the Plan side to cover approximately 40,000 beneficiaries every year onward from 2004-05.
The council has also approved One Time Settlement for buy-back of shares of the PSIDC in joint and assisted sector companies. The annual administrative reports of several departments were also approved.
