Bengal’s DA crisis: Questions over differential rates for state govt employees
Kolkata: As the Supreme Court hears the case on whether West Bengal government employees should receive dearness allowance (DA) at par with their central government counterparts, a fresh controversy has surfaced over the existence of two separate DA rates for employees of the same state government.
The first category includes those West Bengal government employees who are posted in other states on behalf of the state government. This category receives dearness allowance at par with their counterparts in the central government.
The second category is those West Bengal government employees who are posted in their native state only, and they are not paid dearness allowance at par with the central government and many other state governments.
Currently, the West Bengal government employees, posted in West Bengal, 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.
This matter has already been brought to the notice of the apex court by the counsel of the state government employees, Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya, senior advocate and CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member.
Legal experts feel that these differential rates of dearness allowance for two sets of state government employees are something quite unusual, and this point could be a big legal challenge for the state government.
According to senior advocate Kaushik Gupta, considering that dearness allowance is a part of the salary structure, it is never advisable to follow differential rates of dearness allowance for different categories of permanent employees, and more especially if they are employees of the same government setup.
“What I heard is that the counsels representing the state government employees have drawn the attention of the apex court in the matter, and the latter have taken note of this,” he added.