The Mamata Banerjee government announced the seventh pay commission and another 4 per cent dearness allowance (DA) for state government staff during the vote-on-account tabled in the Assembly on Thursday, but the moves failed to make the employees happy as they asked if it was another ploy to mislead them.
“The period of the sixth pay commission for state government employees has ended on 31 st December, 2025. I am happy to announce the constitution of the seventh pay commission, which will look into all the aspects of the pay and allowances of all State government employees for the subsequent period and give its recommendations,” Chandrima Bhattacharya, the minister of state (independent charge) for the finance department, said in her speech.
She also announced another instalment of 4 percent DA for the employees, which would be effective from April 1.
Sources said that the administration was desperate to send a message to the government employees ahead of the Assembly polls, many of whom were aggrieved by the state’s policy of holding back DA over the years. There is a huge difference between the state government employees and their central counterparts in the DA they are paid.
“The state government employees will play important roles during the Assembly polls due in a couple of months. No ruling party would like to face the polls with an aggrieved bunch of state government employees. This is why the seventh pay commission and an instalment of DA were announced,” said a bureaucrat.
But the state government employees were not at all happy with the announcements, as they demanded that the DA gap between them and their counterparts in the central government and many other states be bridged first.
“We are getting 40 per cent less DA compared to the central government employees. While the central government employees get 58 per cent DA, we are paid only 18 per cent DA. With this, the gap would be reduced by 4 per cent and would still stand at 36 per cent. The state government should announce when the gap would be bridged,” said Shyamal Mitra, the president of the Confederation of state government employees.
He also said that the state government employees were not at all happy with the announcement of the seventh pay commission.
“The Centre announced an eighth pay commission after the employees got 58 per cent DA. But in Bengal, the pay commission was announced when the employees would get 22 per cent DA. This is a hoax, as when the recommendations of the new pay commission would be implemented, the employees would have to forgo the due DA, as it happened in 2019 when the sixth pay commission was implemented,” said another leader, adding that the state should match the DA being given by the Centre first and then set up the pay commission.