West Bengal lagging 23% behind in D.A. terms, still no announcement to release.

West Bengal employees certainly disappointed for no announcement of release of Dearness Allowance in near future. They are getting 23% less D.A in comparison to Central and most of the state Government employees. Even the neighboring states like Bihar, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh which too have limited resource of their own are paying D.A. at par with the Central Govt. There were high hopes that this Diwali may bring some good news but nothing actually happened. The F.M, Mr Amit Mitra only promised to release the D.A. "slowly".
Here are some excerpts of the press conference of Mr Amit Mitra, W.B. Finance Minister on 25.10.2011.

Mitra sought to rebut another point raised by Dasgupta: delay in paying dearness allowance to state government employees. The current finance minister put the blame on Dasgupta’s Left government for not having released the arrears on this account. “The Centre had asked the Bengal government to pay 10 per cent DA in July 2010… then it was urged to pay 6 per cent DA in January this year. But it didn’t. Rather, we have been burdened by the last government with Rs 4,800 crore in DA payment arrears,’’ Mitra said. “However, we will pay the DA arrears slowly. Employees are co-operating with us and working hard. They know the financial condition. As and when the situation improves, we will start paying DA,’’ he added. In August this year, the new government had announced a three-month freeze on DA payment, citing financial constraints. Mitra said that raising revenue would be a better option now than tapping the market. He said tax collection had gone up by nearly 20 per cent in August, compared with 16.4 per cent in June. “Non-tax revenue like stamp duty and registration fees is rising. So is excise duty. We will have to look at these aspects rather than go in for more loans now as that would mean interest payment,’’ he said.