West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced that all 14 lakh employees of the West Bengal government will receive a four per cent hike in dearness allowance (DA) starting 1 January 2024. Presently, the state government employees get lower DA than their Central government counterparts.
With this four per cent increment, the DA will now touch 10 per cent.
The increment will benefit teaching and non-teaching staff of schools, colleges, university, statutory undertakings, parastatals as well as pensioners.
This hike will cost the West Bengal government an additional Rs 2,400 crore as conveyed by the chief minister at the inauguration of the Kolkata Christmas Carnival.
She also highlighted the fact that dearness allowance was optional for the state government and that the state government was only trying to appease its employees within the tight budget that it has at its disposal.
The employees of the West Bengal government have been demanding an increment in DA for about a year now. They have also been demanding that DA be regularised and brought at par with what is granted to Central government employees.
Earlier this week, the Meghalaya government decided to hike the dearness allowance (DA) and dearness relief (DR) by three per cent, effective from 1 July, 2023. This hike will be given to all its state-government employees along with pensioners and family pension holders.
