SC order directing Bengal to clear 25 pc pending DA dues to cost state exchequer around Rs 12,000 crore

Kolkata, May 16 (IANS) The Supreme Court’s Friday order directing the West Bengal government to clear 25 per cent of the pending dearness allowances dues within next four weeks, will result into an immediate drain-out of around Rs 12,000 crore, as per initial estimates done by the officials of the state Finance Department.

The order was delivered by a division bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Manoj Mishra.

Currently, West Bengal government employees receive dearness allowances at the rate of just 18 per cent, as against 55 per cent received by their counterparts in the Union government and even many other state governments.

The state Finance Department officials also apprehend that this drain-out might also impact some monthly payments under different welfare schemes run by the state government.

Officially, neither the state government nor the Chief Minister made any statement on this order of the Supreme Court at the time the report was filed.

However, the opposition BJP has wholeheartedly welcomed the order from the apex court and described it as a victory of the long struggle of the state government employees in getting their "legitimate dues", which were "unduly denied" by the state government for a long time.

BJP’s Information Technology Cell Chief and the party’s central observer for West Bengal, Amit Malviya, described the apex court verdict as a major victory both for the state government employees as well as the state unit of the BJP.

Malviya, in a statement, also pointed out that the apex court suggested that the state pay 50 per cent of the dues initially.

"However, senior advocate and Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the Trinamool Congress-led state government, argued that the state lacked the financial capacity to make such a large payment at once. He reportedly claimed that such a move would 'break the back' of the state government financially. If only Mamata Banerjee and her close aides had not looted the exchequer with brazen impunity, there would have been money to pay the state government employees," Malviya’s statement read.

He also assured that his party will ensure that the state government employees get their legitimate dues and the Chief Minister is held accountable.

--IANS

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