The West Bengal government will pay the pending Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears to serving employees, pensioners and family pensioners in a single instalment instead of the two tranches announced earlier, an official said on Saturday.

The decision follows a Supreme Court order in February directing the state government to clear the DA arrears, after which the administration had announced that payments would begin in March.

In a partial modification of its March 13 order, the state government has now decided to release the entire arrears for the period from January 2016 to December 2019 by March 31, the official said.