Cabinet gives its nod to LBSNAA for capacity building of public officials of Namibia

UNION cabinet on Wednesday not only approved the release of an additional installment of dearness allowance (DA) to Central government employees and dearness relief (DR) to pensioners with effect from January 1, 2017, but gave its nod to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie and…

Namibia Institute of Public Administration and Management (NIPAM), Namibia in the field of capacity building of public officials of Namibia. Once the MoU is signed, the Mussoorie-based Academy will be able to disseminate some of its experiences in running a training institution for higher civil services in the country to NIPAM.

Upma Chawdhry, 1983 batch of Himachal Pradesh cadre IAS and one who is empanelled as GoI secretary is now the director of LBSNAA. Set up in 1959, LBSNAA is the premier training institution for the higher civil services in India. It conducts annually the common foundation course for All India Services and all Group ‘A’ services, apart from providing the professional training to regular recruits of IAS and members of the Royal Bhutan Service. 

Meanwhile, the increase in dearness allowance and dearness relief is in accordance with the accepted formula, which is based on the recommendations of the 7th Central Pay Commission, a statement from the cabinet secretariat issued on Wednesday said. It has increased by 2% over the existing rate of 2% of the basic pay and pension, to compensate for price rise. 

The move will benefit about 48.85 lakh Central government employees and 55.51 lakh pensioners.

The combined impact on the exchequer on account of both dearness allowance and dearness relief would be Rs 5,857.28 crore per annum and Rs 6,833.50 crore in the financial year 2017-18 (for a period of 14 months from January, 2017 to February, 2018).