The Union Cabinet meeting was held at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence on Wednesday. This was the first time in 15 months that the Prime Minister and all the ministers were present face to face. Almost every week in the lockdown, such meetings were being held only through video conferencing. Earlier, a physical meeting was held in the first week of April last year.
The Modi government has given a big gift to the Central government employees amid rising inflation and the Covid-19 pandemic. The government has increased the dearness allowance i.e. DA of central employees from 17% to 28%. Its benefit will be available from 1 July 2021. More than 50 lakh central employees and about 61 lakh pensioners will benefit from this decision of the government. For this, the government will spend about Rs 34,401 crore.
Earlier, due to the Covid-19, there was a ban on increasing the DA of employees and pensioners till June 2021. In such a situation, they will benefit from the latest decision. Central government employees and pensioners are yet to get three installments of DA. These installments were to be given on 1 January 2020, 1 July 2020 and 1 January 2021. The dearness allowance of the employees was stopped from January 2020. The government had banned the increase in DA till June 2021, due to which there was no increase in the DA of employees in January 2020, July 2020 and January 2021. This decision of the government will benefit both the employees and pensioners.
Union Minister Anurag Thakur said that 48,34,000 central employees and 65,26,000 pensioners will get its direct benefit. Thakur said that the government has approved Rs 9,800 crore for rural development. It was decided to extend the National AYUSH Mission for four years. Now, it will continue till 2025-26. A total of Rs 4607 crore will be spent on this. As many as 12,000 AYUSH health and wellness centers will be set up across the country. Six AYUSH colleges, and 12 AYUSH Post Graduate institutes will be constructed.
Along with this, the infrastructure of 10 undergraduate institutes will be upgraded. The Ministry of AYUSH has played an active role during the corona period; in such a situation, now the government wants to run a massive awareness campaign through the National AYUSH Mission, to fight diseases in an effective manner.
