State notifies increased DA ‘will be effective from April 1’

Kolkata: The Finance department on Tuesday released a notification that the enhancement of the rate of Dearness Allowance (DA) and Dearness Relief in respect of the employees and pensioners / family pensioners, respectively, of the state government will be effective from April 1, 2024.

The state government had earlier announced that the enhanced DA would be effective from May 1, 2024. The state government employees will get the enhanced DA along with their salary in July. On December 21, 2023, the Bengal Chief Minister had hiked four per cent DA for government employees which was to be made effective from January 1, 2024. The Finance department issued a notification regarding the same.

During the Budget session in the state Assembly, another four per cent hike in DA was announced by state Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharjee and on March 1, the Finance department issued a notification that the whole-time state government employees shall draw DA @ 14 per cent of Basic Pay with effect from May 1, 2024.

However, during one election campaign, Banerjee had said that DA would be effective from April 1. Accordingly, a notification was issued on Tuesday.

Employees and pensioners / family pensioners of the state government and government-aided educational institutions, statutory bodies, government undertakings, Panchayats, including Panchayat workers, municipal corporations / municipalities, local bodies etc will get benefits of DA.

The government will be spending Rs 2400 crore for payment of DA and 14 lakh state government employees will reap fruits from it.

A section of government employees were demanding DA at par with the central government employees. There were speculations of its impact in postal ballot voting.

However, the results of the Lok Sabha elections showed that the bulk of the state employees are satisfied with the increase of four per cent DA from the previous rate of 10 per cent.