The state government has announced to increase the dearness allowance of employees and pensioners by four percent. The new rates will be applicable from April 1, 2025. 10 lakh employees and pensioners will get the benefit of this.
DA Hike West Bengal: There is good news for the government employees of West Bengal. The Mamata Banerjee government of the state has given a big gift to its employees before Holi. Minister of State for Finance (Independent Charge) Chandrima Bhattacharya has announced to increase the dearness allowance (DA) of employees and pensioners by four percent. The new rates will come into effect from April 1, 2025.
On Wednesday, West Bengal Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya presented a budget of Rs 3.89 lakh crore for the financial year 2025-26. In this, he announced to increase the dearness allowance of state employees and pensioners by 4%, after which DA has increased from 14% to 18%. The new rates will be considered effective from April 1, 2025. This will benefit more than 10 lakh employees and pensioners of the state government. However, even after this increase, the difference in DA between the central and state government employees is still 35%.
Assembly elections to be held next year
Let us tell you that assembly elections are to be held in West Bengal in 2026, before that Mamata government has presented its last full budget. Before the elections, Mamata government has increased dearness allowance by 4 percent to appease the employees and pensioners. Since for a long time a large section of employees was repeatedly protesting over dearness allowance, economic analysts were speculating that DA would be increased in the last budget before the 2026 assembly elections. However, Mamata Banerjee’s government has tried to appease the employees by proposing to increase DA in the budget on Wednesday itself.
Gift to Asha/Anganwadi workers
The Finance Minister announced allocation of Rs 200 crore to provide smart phones to Asha and Anganwadi workers. This will benefit 70,000 Asha workers. However, no announcement was made about the Lakshmi Bhandar scheme in the budget. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said after the budget was presented that Lakshmi Bhandar is a popular scheme. A total of 2.21 crore women benefit from it. The state government spends Rs 50,000 crore on it.
