Kolkata, Feb. 12 -- Bengal Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya, on Wednesday, announced a 4 per cent dearness allowance (DA) for the state government employees while presenting a Rs 3.89 lakh crore Budget for 2025-26.

"We have so far released DA up to 14 per cent on the revised basic pay. To reduce the burden of inflation on the government and semi-government employees, teaching and non-teaching staff and pensioners, our government has decided to release another instalment of DA of 4 per cent with effect from April 1, 2025, raising the total DA to 18 per cent," Bhattacharya said in her budget statement.

According to her, the Left Front government released only 35 per cent of the DA recommended by the 5th pay commission.

However, the TMC government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee gradually raised DA rate upto 125 per cent from time to time. "This 125 per cent DA was merged with the basic pay as per the recommendation of the 6th pay commission,"

she added. Mamata Banerjee said that the state includes the amount recommended by the pay commission while paying the DA to government employees. "The Central service rule and the state service rules are different. We will be paying additional DA phase by phase as we arrange funds. If the state government employees are happy, we are also happy," she added.

Bhattacharya acknowledged the contribution of state employees in the development of the state and maintained that the government is always empathetic towards them.

The announcement is expected to ease the financial strain on thousands of government employees across various departments, strengthening the relationship between the state administration and its employees. However, Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said that the state Budget played a cruel joke on the state government employees by only effecting a 4 per cent hike in their DA (18 per cent in total) which is far below the DA hike for Central government employees and government employees

in other states.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.