Ahead of the festive season, the central government on Wednesday decided to hike the dearness allowance for its employees by 4 percentage points to 46 per cent of the basic salary and pay 78 days of salaries as bonus for non-gazetted railway staff.

Briefing reporters about the Cabinet decisions, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the increase in dearness allowance and dearness relief will benefit 48.67 lakh central government employees and 67.95 lakh pensioners, respectively.