West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that her government would be giving a four per cent raise in dearness allowance (DA) to all its employees from New Year's Day. Banerjee made the announcement while speaking at the inauguration of the Kolkata Christmas Carnival 2023 at Allen Park in Park Street area of the city.
"I announce that all 14 lakh state government employees, teaching and non-teaching staff of all schools, colleges and universities, and employees of all statutory undertakings and parastatals and pensioners would be getting another instalment of 4 per cent DA from January 1, 2024," Banerjee said. Stating that the provision of DA is mandatory for the central government whereas it is "optional" for the state, Banerjee said that for the DA hike, her government would have to bear an additional expense of Rs 2,400 crore.
"We raise DA periodically. Though we have a Pay Commission, we give this additionally. The Centre's pay structure is different from ours. Their service rules are different. For us, DA is not mandatory, but optional. Despite that, we give it because our employees work day in and day out. So, keeping in mind their well-being we have taken this decision," she added.
Banerjee, while referring to her meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday to press for the release of the dues to the state, said, "We will have to spend Rs 2,400 crore for this despite the fact that we do not get our dues from the Centre. I have met the PM in this regard. The Centre owes us Rs 1.15 lakh crore..
"Under the new pay scale, the state govt has released 6 per cent DA from 2019 with an expenditure of Rs 4,144 crore in four years," she said. The former Left Front government in the state had given an annual DA of 35 per cent as per the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission.
Soon after assuming power, the Mamata Banerjee government, in phases, implemented 90 per cent of the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission for which it had to spend Rs 1,66,865 crores to date. In 2019, the state government implemented the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission, raising the dearness allowance to 125 per cent of their basic pay.
