The Congress has slammed the government for freezing the Dearness Allowance (DA) of central government employees and pensioners and demanded scrapping of the bullet train and central vista projects to save 30 per cent from the government expenditure.
“It is an insensitive and inhumane decision of the government to cut DA of central employees, pensioners and jawans who are serving the public while fighting coronavirus, instead of suspending the bullet train project and the Central Vista beautification project of lakhs of crores (of rupees),” Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi.
Instead of cutting expenditure and wasteful expenses, government is hurting middle class employees and pensioners, said Randeep Surjewala, Chief spokesperson of the party. The government should scrap bullet train and central vista projects and save Rs 1,30,000 crore and divert the money to fight COVID-19, added Surjewala. The Congress said that the decision of the government will adversely impact the morale of the armed forces.
As part of the austerity drive, the Centre on Thursday announced suspension of DA hike for the central employees till July 2021. Moreover, ministries and departments have also been categorised for fixing a cap on their quarterly expenditure, limiting it to 15-20 per cent of the annual budget expenditure for FY21 in the first quarter.
