Fake Circular Shared to Claim Govt Employees Won't Receive Dearness Allowance

The Department of Expenditure has not issued any such memorandum regarding Dearness Allowance or Relief.

No such circular has been issued by the Department of Expenditure.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

A circular that appears to be an 'Office Memorandum' issued by the Department of Expenditure under the Ministry of Finance is being shared on social media.

The memorandum, dated 3 January 2022, claims that in view of rising Omicron cases, central government employees' Dearness Allowances and pensioners' Dearness Relief will "be kept in abeyance so as to deal with any unprecedented situation."

But we didn't find any such circular or office memorandum on the Finance Ministry's website. The website, under its 'Dearness Allowance' section, displays only two circulars that were issued in 2021.

Moreover, this circular was undersigned by one 'Anand Prakash' and we found another circular by the Indian Railways which, too, was undersigned by 'Anand Prakash' where the signature was the same.

CLAIM

The circular which has been shared online enlists that the Dearness Allowance and Dearness Relief for central government employees is being suspended till July in view of the increasing cases on Omicron.

The circular has been signed by "Anand Prakash, Executive Director of Finance (Budget)".

An archiveof this post can be seen here.

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)

Archived versions of posts with the same claim on Facebook can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

First, we checked the Department of Expenditure's website to see if it had issued any circulars recently, such as the one in the claim.

Under the 'Dearness Allowance' section, we came across only two circulars, both of which had been issued in August 2021.

Both circulars were uploaded in 2021.

(Source: Deparment of Expenditure/Altered by The Quint)

None of these two circulars spoke about the dearness allowance being kept in abeyance.

We also observed the circular closely, and saw that it was signed by one Anand Prakash, the Executive Director of the Finance (Budget) department. We found no such profile or person on the Department of Expenses' personnel page.

Next, we looked up the name along with the job title on Google and the results returned a circular posted on the website of the Indian Railways.

This circular, issued by the Ministry of Railways in 2020, was signed by the same Anand Prakash, and carried the date as well.

Both signatures are similar.

(Source: Altered by The Quint)

On comparing both signatures, we found that it was likely that the false circular being shared might have used the signature on the Railways' circular.

Clearly, a fake circular is being shared to claim that the Dearness Allowance for Central government employees and Dearness Relief for pensioners would be kept in abeyance till July 2022 over rising Omicron cases.

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