Gujarat’s oldest cohort of state pensioners, those still paid under the 1998 pay rules, will see their monthly dearness relief rise from 381% to 443% of basic pension, with arrears reaching back to July 2021. The Finance Department issued the government resolution from Gandhinagar on 22 October 2026, and Gujarat Samachar, ETV Bharat and Gujarat First have each reported the slab-wise schedule it lays out.
Three rate tracks for three generations of retirees
The order covers pensioners and family pensioners governed by the Gujarat Civil Services (Revision of Pay) Rules, 1998, the state’s version of the Fifth Pay Commission. Gujarat runs separate relief rates for each pay-rules generation, and the gap between them is wide. The Accountant General’s listing of Gujarat pension orders shows 53% for Seventh Pay Commission pensioners and 246% for Sixth from July 2024, against 381% for the 1998-rules group from October 2024. The percentages look enormous because the basic pensions they multiply were fixed in 1990s rupees. ETV Bharat cautions that pensioners on the 2009 or 2016 rules should not read this order as applying to them; their rates come through separate resolutions.
The slab schedule and what the arrears add up to
Rather than a single jump, the resolution re-fixes the rate in steps: 396% from 1 July 2022, 412% from 1 January 2023, 427% from 1 July 2023 and 443% from 1 January 2024. Pensioners in this group had been paid 312% through that period, so the arrears owed for each half-year differ: 56 percentage points of basic for July to December 2021, 69 for January to June 2022, 84 for the next half, 100 for January to June 2023, 115 for July to December 2023 and 131 for January to June 2024, per the schedule reported by Gujarat Samachar and ETV Bharat. The 381% rate fixed in late 2024 is superseded by 443%.
ETV Bharat’s worked examples show the monthly difference going forward: a pensioner with a basic pension of Rs 10,000 moves from Rs 38,100 to Rs 44,300 in relief, a gain of Rs 6,200 a month; at Rs 5,000 basic the gain is Rs 3,100. The arrears are larger. Summing the six half-yearly differences over 36 months gives roughly 32 times basic pension, which at the new rate equals about six months of pension plus relief. Gujarat First reported that the arrears are to be credited to bank accounts as a lump sum and that district treasuries have been told to prepare bills so that the money lands before Diwali. That timing is the government’s stated aim rather than a date in the order.
Who calculates it, and who is left out
Pensioners need do nothing. The resolution puts the calculation on the pension disbursing authority, so the treasury or bank that pays the pension works out the exact amount from each individual’s record and past payments. Fractions of a rupee round up; fractions under 50 paise are dropped. Pensioners living outside Gujarat are covered: the order asks other states’ Accountants General and public sector banks to apply the revised rates. One group gets the increase only if its employer acts. Retired staff of municipalities, panchayats and boards receive it only where those bodies adopt the order and fund it from their own budgets, because the state will not pay an extra grant for them.
No report gives the number of pensioners affected, and the Finance Department has not published a cost estimate. For a group whose basic pensions are small in today’s money the total is unlikely to strain the state budget, but for an individual household the arrears cheque, three years at 56 to 131 points of basic, is the largest single pension payment many will have received.
Sources: Gujarat Samachar, ETV Bharat, Gujarat First, Accountant General pension orders listing
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.