A piece of good news for the bank employees as the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has recently announced the revised dearness allowance (DA) rate for various bank employees for February, March and April 2026.
Revised Dearness Allowance Rates
Moving ahead, IBA has also announced the revised and dearness relief (DR) for pensioners for February to July 2026.
Dearness Allowance for Workmen and Officer Employees in banks for February, March and April 2026 under XII BPS/9TH Joint Note dated 08.03.2024
The DA rate will be 25% for the months of August, September and October 2025 which is almost 4% higher than the dearness allowance rates.
in a circular dated February 2, 2026, IBA noted, “…the rate of Dearness Allowance payable to Workmen and Officer employees for the months of February, March and April 2026 shall be 25% of `pay’ (0.01% change in DA on ‘pay’ for change in every second decimal place of CPI 2016 over 123.03 points),” IBA said.
This is primarily based on the Consumer Price Index for October, November and December 2025.
According to IBA, “the average CPI of the above is 148.03 and accordingly the number of points over 123.03 are 25.00 (148.03 – 123.03). The last average quarterly CPI was 146.96. Hence, there is an increase of 1.07 points for February, March and April 2026.”
The Dearness Allowance for Workmen and Officer Employees for February, March and April 2026 under XI BPS/ 8TH Joint Note dated 11.11.2020 DA will be 59.08% of pay.
The IBA said, “… the rate of Dearness Allowance payable to Workmen and Officer employees for the months of February, March and April 2026 shall be 59.08% of `pay’. While arriving at dearness allowance payable, decimals from third place may please be ignored.”
Dearness Relief Payable to Pensioners
The following rates of DR will apply for different retirees which will be payable for the period February 2026 to July 2026.
- To start with, the Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of January,1986, but before the 1st day of November 1992/1st July, 1993: 1528.94% of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November 1992/1st July, 1993: 750.75% of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of April, 1998: 482% of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November 2002: 334.80% of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November, 2007: 258.45 % of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November, 2012: 132.20% of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November, 2017: 59.08 % of basic pension.
- Dearness Relief to pensioners who retired on or after 1st day of November, 2022: 25 % of basic pension.
