Mamata announces additional 18 pc DA for state govt employees

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today announced an additional 18 per cent dearness allowance (DA) to the state government employees from January next.

She said that the state government has also decided to merge the 10 per cent interim relief into the DA and the total DA of the state government employees will be 125 per cent from January next.

"Because I had made a commitment towards the state government employees. We are announcing it a bit early because we have to follow some planning.

"We have decided to release additional 18 per cent DA to the state government employees including teachers and non-teaching staff of educational institutions and employees of rural and urban local bodies. This will be effective from next January," Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat.

The state government will have to bear an annual additional expenditure of Rs 5,000 crore, she said.

"With the release of additional 18 per cent DA and merger of the interim relief, the total additional DA to the state government employees from next January will be 125 per cent," Banerjee said.

"We are going through a very tight financial condition but despite that because I had promised our state government employees we have decided to release the additional 18 per cent DA," she said.

The chief minister said that the erstwhile Left Front government had managed to provide a 35 per cent DA to the state government employees while her government despite financial crisis has given a hike of 90 per cent DA.

"We despite our financial crisis and repaying loan to the Centre and running several schemes like Sabujshree, Kanyashree have provided 90 per cent DA to our employees," she stated.