Bengal cabinet clears 7th Pay Commission, Annapurna Bhandar rollout

IANS, May 18, 2026, Kolkata : The West Bengal cabinet on Monday approved implementation of the 7th Pay Commission for state government employees.

Announcing the decision after the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, state minister for Women & Child Development and Social Welfare Agnimitra Paul said the move addresses a long-pending demand of employees. She said the proposal was cleared after the matter was taken up in the cabinet meeting.

She said that the state cabinet also cleared the proposal for implementation of the Annapurna Bhandar project, the monthly financial assistance scheme for eligible women beneficiaries in the state involving a monthly allowance of Rs 3,000, which was proposed in the Sankalp Patra (election manifesto) of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the recently concluded West Bengal assembly elections.

According to her, the women who were receiving monthly allowances under the previous Lakshmir Bhandar scheme, a similar financial assistance scheme run by the previous Mamata Banerjee-led government, will automatically get linked to the new Annapurna Bhandar project.

“The money will be automatically transferred to their bank accounts. Those who were not receiving the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme benefits so far can now apply for enrollment under the Annapurna Bhandar scheme. The new applications can be made only for which a new portal will be opened shortly,” Paul said.

“At the same time,” she added, “the state cabinet in its meeting today had also cleared a proposal for free rides for all women in the state in all state-run public buses from June 1.”

She also said that at the moment, no decision has been made in the cabinet meeting about increasing the number of buses. “We will use the existing infrastructure of government buses. The full state budget will be presented in June. However, in the cabinet meeting, the Chief Minister said that some new electric buses will be included in the state transport system,” Paul said.

However, she said that the state cabinet has decided to stop all supportive schemes provided on the basis of religious classifications under both the state information & cultural affairs and minority affairs & madrasah education departments from next month.

“Such scholarship will be in force only for this current month and will be stopped from June 1,” Paul said.