10 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance for state govt employees

Giving a New Year’s gift to all Bengal government employees, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a 10 per cent hike in Dearness Allowance (DA).

She said in Nabanna on Friday that it would be in force from January 1 and Rs 3,000 crore has been sanctioned from the state’s exchequer for the same. The announcement has brought happiness among the state government employees. With the announcement, the difference between the DA of the Central government employees and state government employees has come down to 46 per cent.

According to the state government employees, the announcement at the time of demonetisation has brought a much needed relief to them.

More than seven lakh state government employees would be getting the benefit of the increased DA. It may be mentioned that DA was increased by 10 per cent at the beginning of 2016 as well.

There was also been an ad hoc increase in the existing wages of daily-rated workers under the state government.

Though the deadline to submit the proposal of the Sixth Pay Commission has been increased by a year that led to a delay in revision in pay scale of the state government employees, the decision of the Mamata Banerjee government to give a 10 per cent interim relief on pay soon after coming to power for the second time was welcomed by the employees.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said in the inauguration programme of Sasthya Sathi that the Centre is taking away Rs 40,000 crore from the state’s exchequer. “Many more steps for the betterment of the people of the state would have been done if they had not taken away the money,” she said.

It may be mentioned that the Mamata Banerjee government had ensured timely payment of salary unlike the delay caused by the erstwhile Left Front government.

Moreover in a bid to give relief to the state government employees, camps were set up in Nabanna to help them get notes of lower denomination after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hasty decision of demonetisation was in force.