DA crisis: WB govt employees to make salary hike for MLAs main agenda to press for their demands

Kolkata: The state government employees in West Bengal demanding enhanced dearness allowance (DA) at par with their Central government counterparts and the arrears accrued on it have decided to make the decision of the state government to hike the salaries of minister and legislators by Rs 40,000 a month a major agenda to press for their demands.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced to hike the salaries of all ministers and MLAs by a whopping Rs 40,000 a month. After the hike, the monthly payment received by the legislators, including salary, allowances and perks, will increase to Rs 1.21 lakh from the current Rs 81,000. Similarly, the monthly payment received by ministers, including salary, allowances and perks, will go up from the current Rs 1.10 lakh to Rs 1.50 lakh.

Bhaskar Ghosh, the convener of the joint forum of state government employees, the umbrella organisation spearheading the movement on the DA issue, said that while the state government is spending crores of rupees behind wasteful and avoidable expenditures, they are denying the state government employees of their legitimate dues.

“The state government has enough money for such an exorbitant hike in the salaries of ministers and legislators, but it does not have enough money to pay our DA. We will be going for a massive agitation in the coming days, including cease-work, and this issue of salary hike for ministers and MLAs will be our principal agenda,” he said.

The future agitation programme includes ghearo of police stations in all districts on September 10, rallies in front of all block development offices on September 18, march to Raj Bhavan on September 24, and two-day cease-work on October 10 and October 11.

Already the leader of opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikri, has announced that the BJP legislators will reject the enhanced salary.

“We are against receiving this enhanced salary. Our legislative team has met Governor C.V. Ananda Bose and requested him not to give assent to the proposal for salary hike for ministers and MLAs that was passed on the floor of the House on Thursday,” Adhikari had said soon after the Chief Minister made the announcement.