Bengal govt moves SC seeking revision of order concerning pending DA

Kolkata, June 12 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.

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