Covid-19: Bengal govt extends austerity measures till March 2021

The West Bengal government has

decided to extend the period of austerity measures taken to meet the expenditure for tackling the coronavirus pandemic from this September to March 31 next year.

"The validity of this department memorandum specifying additional austerity measures to be followed by all state government and semi state government offices to tackle the huge unforeseen expenditure for combating Covid-19 disease in our state extended upto September 30.

"Now, the validity of the memorandum is further extended upto March 31 or until further order, whichever is earlier," a finance department said in an order on Tuesday.

As per the memorandum issued on April 2, no new schemes have been taken up and prior approval of the finance department was sought for any urgent public interest programmes, official sources said.

The government had also said that no purchase of vehicles, computers, IT related accessories, furniture, ACs and TVs would be undertaken.

The memorandum had further said that there should be no recruitment/engagement of manpower unless approved by the finance department.