Bengal DA Hike News: The West Bengal government has increased the Dearness Allowance for its state employees and pensioners by 3%. Finance minister Chandrima Bhattacharya announced the decision during the presentation of the state budget for the financial year 2023-24, which is Rs 3.39 lakh crore. The move comes after a recent protest by state government officials, who demanded payment of their pending dearness allowance.
The announcement was followed by a debate in the Lok Sabha where BJP and TMC MPs discussed the issue of pending dearness allowance payments. Expressing his concern over the issue, BJP MP Saumitra Khan had said that the West Bengal government employees are on hunger strike and are not getting dearness allowance.
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Meanwhile, the Center is likely to increase the Dearness Allowance for over 1 crore employees and pensioners by around 4% in the near future. This increase will increase the dearness allowance from 38% to 42%. Dearness allowance for employees and pensioners is calculated on the basis of the latest Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW), which is published monthly by the Labor Bureau, a wing of the labor ministry.
Apart from increasing the dearness allowance, the West Bengal budget has proposed to waive agricultural income tax on tea gardens for two years and provide loan facilities to young entrepreneurs. The state GDP is expected to grow at 8.4% and industry at 7.8% during the current financial year 2022-23. The Finance Minister also announced setting up of a Rs 350 crore fund to provide loans up to Rs 5 lakh to 2 lakh young entrepreneurs. Additionally, the budget proposes complete waiver of duty on irrigation water supplied to farms and construction of 11,500 km of rural roads at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore.
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