Fingers crossed on festival bonus

Chennai: About 12 lakh state government employees and one lakh pensioners are keeping their fingers crossed as government is yet to pass orders related to the dearness allowance and festival bonus that usually get credited during the first week of October, ahead of Deepavali season.

“For the last three years, former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa treated us on par with Central government staff and announced periodic revisions of bonus and dearness allowance. We are yet to make any official referendum in this regard and also it will be ungrateful to push the demand at this point of time,” said K. Suresh Kumar, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Secretariat Association.

“Last year during this period, most of the staff spent their bonus and DA allowance on Deepavalli shopping. This year, nobody expected political turmoil. So far there is no pressure mounting on trade unions to represent to the government and we are hoping for orders by next week,” said an officer of the rank of assistant director.

“Seven per cent of dearness allowance is what Central government recently announced and we hope that the state government will follow the Centre. We are hopeful that we will get our arrears before Deepavali,” said a government medical officer.

When contacted, confidential sources hinted that prominent files related to government machinery are now getting cleared and that the file pertaining to government employees has cleared the preliminary rounds and is pending with top brass at the Chief Minister’s office. “It is a matter of days and will be settled shortly,” according to a highly placed official.