The Circular That Made Me Check What APDCL Was Doing Differently A circular landed in one of my WhatsApp groups a few weeks back. Nothing dramatic, just a forwarded image of an internal APDCL notice. It showed something that made me stop scrolling: APDCL had already implemented the DA hike with effect from 1st January … Read more
The DA Hike Came, the Arrears Didn’t: Here’s What Actually Happened My organisation follows the Assam government’s DA rate, which is how it works for a lot of state-linked PSU employees. So when the state cabinet cleared a 2% DA hike, from 58% to 60% of basic pay, in the first week of June, I … Read more
Ex-Gratia and Productivity Linked Bonus Are Not the Same Scheme If you’ve ever heard a colleague say “PLB” while describing what your PSU actually pays as ex-gratia, here’s the simplest way to catch the mistake: ask whether everyone got the same rate. If the answer is yes, it can’t be PLB. Productivity Linked Bonus is, … Read more
What Is DA and Why Does It Matter More Than Your Increment, DA Hike explained DA stands for Dearness Allowance. On paper, it is defined as a cost-of-living adjustment — compensation for inflation, revised twice a year to protect your salary’s purchasing power as prices rise. In reality, for PSU employees, DA is far more … Read more
Why Your Salary Slip Is the Most Important Document You’re Ignoring Every month, without fail, your salary slip lands in your inbox or on your ESS portal. And every month, most PSU employees do one of two things with it — check the net pay figure at the bottom, or download it and forget it … Read more
What My Salary Actually Looks Like (Most PSU Employees Don’t Know This) My April 2026 payslip shows a gross salary of ₹ 67,000. But the money that actually lands in my Bank account? ₹ 44,000. That ₹ 23,000 gap is the first thing that shocks most new PSU joiners — including me when I started … Read more