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India: Suspicious move to shift base year for calculating DA | Press release by AITUC - Oct 24, 2020

24 October 2020

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Founder President, Lala Lajpat Rai Founded on 31.10.1920
All India Trade Union Congress
AITUC Bhawan: 35-36, DDU Marg, Rouse Avenue, New Delhi – 110002
E Mail: aituchq[at]gmail.com Tel: +91 1123217320
President: Ramendra Kumar
General Secretary: Amarjeet Kaur
Working President: H.Mahadevan

Date: 24.10.2020

PRESS RELEASE

AITUC SAYS CENTRE’S MOVE TO SHIFT BASE YEAR FOR CALCULATING DEARNESS ALLOWANCE SUSPICIOUS

The Labour Bureau of the Ministry of Labour, GOI sent out emails announcing revision of base year for calculating CPI-IW (Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers) from 2001 to 2016, on October 22, 2020.

This decision follows the earlier pattern practised by the Labour Ministry: making a show of consulting “stakeholders“ at the eleventh hour and then completely ignoring the responses received.

The entire lot of Central Trade Unions had opposed through a written, signed communication, the recommendations of the Labour Bureau point by point, only to discover that they have simply been brushed aside. The so-called consultations on Labour Codes, including recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Labour, met the same fate.

Since the present decision of shifting the base year to 2016, linking factor of 2.88, proportions of items of household expenditures, points of data collections, all are going to result in depression of dearness allowance payable to industrial workers, the employers stand to gain that much as their profits.

The AITUC therefore condemns this robbery in broad daylight by the Central Government.

Amarjeet Kaur
General Secretary AITUC