Budget dashes hope of pay and DA hike

Pranesh Sarkar, TT, Calcutta: The Bengal budget came as a disappointment to government employees as allocation for salaries showed that the sixth pay commission's recommendations were unlikely to be implemented or their dearness allowance might not be increased in the next one year.

According to the "Budget at a Glance" for 2018-19, a summary of budgetary allocations and proposed expenditures, amount for salaries has been increased to Rs 42,070.33 crore from Rs 39,033.64 crore in 2017-18.

"With the paltry hike of Rs 3,036.69 crore, we can give one instalment of DA and mandatory annual increment of 3 per cent of the basic pay next fiscal," said a senior finance department official.

Nearly 3 lakh state government employees and 5 lakh staff of aided institutions like schools were expecting measures to bridge the DA gap with their central counterparts and implement the pay commission's recommendations which were likely to be made next year. #"There were reasons for state government employees to be hopeful as the ruling party wants to counter the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls," said a state government official.

Bengal government employees claim they were getting 39 per cent less DA compared to central staff. Besides, they are being deprived of a revised pay structure as the Centre has already implemented the new pay commission recommendations, which was followed by several states.

"The state finances don't allow the government to shoulder additional burdens right now as it would require Rs 16,000 crore to bridge the DA gap and Rs 40,000 crore to accept recommendations of pay commission," said a finance department official.

Finance department officials said with the available resources, the chief minister wanted to open the purse for rural populace in this year's budget keeping upcoming panchayat polls in mind.

"This is why several new schemes were announced for the rural people, but nothing was done for the employees," said an employee of land and land reforms department.

The tenure of the pay commission, set up by Mamata Banerjee in November 2015, has already been extended twice and its tenure would end in November, 2018.

"It appears that the tenure of the pay commission would be extended further and its recommendations would not be submitted before March 2019," said an official.