FACT CHECK: No proposal to cut 30% pay of Central govt employees

Guwahati: After a recent claim by a certain media outlet stating that a proposal of 30% salary cut from Central government employees has been put forth by the government of India, Union minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions Dr Jitendra Singh has denied such reports.

The news that came from a national television news channel claimed that the government plans to cut down 30% of the salaries of its officers, with the lowest rung of the employees along with contractual staff to be exempted from the move.

Singh took to Twitter to clarify, “Please ignore the FAKE NEWS being circulated in a section of media. There is no proposal by the Government to carry out deduction in the salary of its employees. @DoPTGoI”

Even the Union ministry of finance took to Twitter to express its views. It said, “There is no proposal under consideration of Govt for any cut whatsoever in the existing salary of any category of central government employees. The reports in some sections of media are false and have no basis whatsoever. @nsitharamanoffc, @PIB_India, @DDNewslive, @airnewsalerts”

Later, the fact check team of the Press Information Bureau shared the same on Twitter.

A similar incident also took place earlier in the month of April when news of plans by the government to cut down 20% in the Central government pensions turned out to be fake.

However, the Centre in April did freeze all the dearness allowances (DA) of its employees (4.8 million of them) and pensioners (6.5 million of them) at 17% till July 1 of 2021 as a way to curtail expenditure in an effort to meet the spending requirement to fight COVID-19.