The government has issued orders sanctioning ad hoc bonus and festival allowance for State government employees, aided school teachers and full-time contingent workers.
Employees earning not more than Rs.18,150 a month (excluding HRA and compensatory allowance) will be eligible for bonus of Rs.3,500. Other employees will get Rs.2,200 as special festival allowance.
Finance Minister K.M. Mani said the government had raised the income limit of employees eligible for ad hoc bonus and festival allowance from the Rs.16,050 last year to ensure that more employees got the benefit.
Pro-rata pensioners and family pensioners will get Rs.670 and Rs.650 respectively as special festival allowance. Part-time contingent family pensioners and compassionate allowance pensioners will get festival allowance of Rs.480 while other categories of pensioners will get Rs.550.
Advance of Rs.10,000All State government employees will be eligible for a maximum Onam advance of Rs.10,000, deductible from salary in five equal instalments.
Part-time contingent employees, permanent workers in agricultural farms, NMR workers and seasonal workers of all departments, permanent labourers in government departments, workers of regional workshop under the Public Works Department and the dredger and dry-dock workers in Alappuzha, family planning voluntary workers, Anganwadi workers and helpers, non-permanent workers in the agriculture, animal husbandry and dairy development and spraying workers under the scheme for spraying coconut palms to control leaf rot diseases and CLR workers of all departments and grass cutters in the mounted police wing will be eligible for an advance of Rs.2,000. The bonus, festival allowance and advance will be distributed along with the salary for August.
The following are the special festival allowance for categories of employees not eligible for full allowance (in Rs.):
School counsellors – 840; ASHA workers – 900; sweepers on consolidated remuneration – 670; additional staff of MLAs – 800; cooks of Pre-primary Schools run by PTAs – 1,000. ; and Preraks and Assistant Preraks – 700
