The BJP-led Bengal government has asked the departments and district authorities to initiate measures to cut down expenditure in an apparent bid to pave the way for the huge additional burden on the exchequer to run enhanced welfare schemes that the party promised during the run-up to the Assembly polls.
“... all Departments, directors, State PSUs, Boards, Corporations, Government-owned or Government-funded societies, offices, parastatals and field-level offices under the Government of West Bengal are directed to take appropriate measures for reduction of expenditure and enhancement of efficency in public service delivery...,” reads an order issued by chief secretary Manoj Agarwal on Monday.
According to the order, the secretaries of the departments and district magistrates should opt for video conferencing and virtual meetings for official work and explore work-from-home options to reduce expenditure. The authorities should also discourage non-essential travel and use public transport wherever possible.
Furthermore, the authorities should also adopt paperless functioning (e-office) and minimise all avoidable expenditure.
The move, sources said, was initiated to deal with the additional burden the state exchequer was set to face in the next few months as the new govermment would have to shoulder the cost of Annapurna Bhandar and assistance to unemployed youth.
Under the Annapurna Bhandar, the BJP government will give ₹3,000 a month to each of the 2.20 crore women in Bengal. Under the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme introduced by the Mamata Banerjee government in 2021, women used to get ₹1,500 a month or ₹1,700 a month if they were from the SC/ST category.
“The Trinamool-led government used to spend a sum of ₹30,000 crore annually to run the Lakshmir Bhandar scheme. Now, as the new government would almost double the benefits, it would have to spend about ₹56,000 crore annually under this particular scheme. An additional burden of ₹26,000 crore is huge in Bengal where enhancing revenue generation is not easy given the scarcity of large industries,” said a senior state government official.
Another expensive welfare scheme would be the monthly assistance to unemployed youth.
The BJP had promised to give ₹3,000 a month to unemployed youths in Bengal to counter the previous government’s Yuva Sathi in which 84 lakh youths were given ₹1,500 a month. “For this scheme, the state will have to spend more than ₹30,000 crore annually,” said a source.
In addition to these, if the state government decides to give some of the due DA to the state government employees, the burden would be huge.
“The state has to spend ₹64 crore to give one per cent DA every month. Right now, state government employees are getting 42 per cent less DA compared to their central government counterparts. If the state government announces 10 per cent DA next month, it would have to spend an extra amount of more than ₹7,600 crore annually,” said an official.
According to sources in the finance department, even though Bengal has a “double engine” government now, “the state cannot depend on the Centre to shoulder the burden of doles”.
“The state will have to find ways to meet the additional expenditure. First, it has to cut down expenditure, and second, it has to increase revenue generation in a big way. Baby steps are being initiated to cut expenditure, but it remains to be seen how more revenue is generated,” said a source.
While appreciating the initiative to cut down administrative expenditure, a section of the bureaucrats said that these small steps would not serve the purpose for the new government.
"It needs to discontinue some unnecessary schemes introduced by the previous government to save the state exchequer from getting stressed further," said a finance department official.
The state government, the source said, should rethink schemes such as giving funds to clubs for Durga Puja or the Khadya Sathi-2 under which more than two crore relatively affluent people are given cheap grains.
The state should also rethink giving monthly aid to all the women under the Annapurna Bhandar scheme, suggested an official, and focus on the really needy ones in order to save a handsome amount of funds.