Bengal government moves Supreme Court seeking revision of order concerning pending DA
The West Bengal govt has approached the SC seeking revision of the earlier order related to the clearing of pending dearness allowance
- KOLKATA — The West Bengal government has approached the Supreme Court
seeking revision of the earlier order related to the clearing of pending
dearness allowance.
-
- State secretariat sources said in the petition at the
Apex Court, the state government had also sought certain clarifications on
certain points of the order that was delivered last month.
-
- However, the sources added, while moving the petition,
the state government is carrying out the preparatory process for paying 25 per
cent of the pending dearness allowance dues within the stipulated date.
-
- "However, the Supreme Court is on vacation now.
Therefore, even though the petition has been filed, it may not be listed for
hearing until the vacation period is over. So the state government has kept the
preparatory process on for paying the 25 per cent of the pending dearness
allowances dues within the Supreme Court stipulated deadline, to avoid any
possibility of contempt of court," said a senior official of the state
government who did not wish to be named.
-
- The immediate payment of 25 per cent of the pending
dearness allowance dues will result in an immediate drain-out of over Rs 10,000
crore from the state exchequer, as per calculations of the state Finance
Department.
-
- Currently, government employees in Bengal receive
dearness allowances at a rate of just 18 per cent, as against 55 per cent
received by their counterparts in the Centre and many other state governments.
-
- The state Finance Department employees also apprehend
that this drain-out might also impact some monthly payments under different
welfare schemes run by the state government.
-
- Last month, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee indirectly
blamed the Union government for the DA crisis.
-
- She claimed that since the Union government had frozen
payments under various centrally-sponsored schemes to the state government, the
latter had to continue those projects with its own money, as a result of which
there was constant pressure on the state exchequer.
