Bengal DA crisis: As deadline for paying 25 pc dues nears, uncertainties persist

Kolkata, June 25 With less than 72 hours left for meeting the Supreme Court's deadline for the West Bengal government to clear 25 per cent pending dearness allowance (DA) dues to current and retired state government employees, uncertainties continue.

The actual deadline is midnight on June 29. However, considering that June 28 and June 29 are state government holidays, the deadline will be midnight on June 27, which is less than 72 hours after Sunday.

On one hand, all the members of the state cabinet, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, as well as senior bureaucrats from the state government, are tight-lipped over the internal progress in meeting the deadline. On the other hand, the representatives of the different associations of state government employees have failed to get any specific assurance or answer from the state finance department on the matter despite repeated queries.

In view of the situation, as claimed by those associations, the possibility of any of the two climaxes on this count is imminent now.

The first possibility is that the 25 per cent pending arrears are credited to the bank accounts of the eligible ones within the deadline, and thus, the state government comes to a temporary peace agreement with the protesting state government employees.

The second possibility, which seems more likely, is that if the state government fails to credit the dues, it will attract a contempt-of-court proceeding against it.

BJP’s state general secretary in West Bengal, Jagannath Chattopadhyay, claimed that there is a high possibility of the state government approaching the apex court again with a review petition, similar to the one filed by the state government against the Supreme Court order cancelling 25,753 school jobs in the state.

“If the review petition does not work out, then, as far as information available to me, the state government might seek more time, with the excuse of completing the accounting process involved with the payment of 25 per cent of pending dearness allowance dues.

Already, the United Forum of State Government Employees, the umbrella body spearheading the movement on this issue, has hinted at opening dual fronts against the state government in case the deadline is not honoured.

According to the forum convener Bhaskar Ghosh, they have not received any communication or any hint as yet on what the state government is thinking about meeting the deadline. “If the deadline is honoured and the state government pays the 25 per cent dues within the deadline, we will welcome that and progress accordingly for getting the remaining 75 per cent cleared. If the deadline is not honoured, we will open dual fronts against the state government. The first front is to update the apex court in the matter and file a contempt-of-court petition. The second front is starting another round of movement against the state government,” Ghosh said.

Currently, the 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.

Payment of 25 per cent of pending dues is expected to cost the state exchequer around Rs 12,000 crore. The state finance department employees apprehend that this drain-out might impact some monthly payments under different welfare schemes run by the state government.

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