WB Govt accepts Fifth Pay Commission recommendations

Kolkata: With Lok Sabha elections round the corner, the West Bengal Government today announced the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission with certain improvements, which will be effective from April 1 this year.

"The state government has accepted, by and large, the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission, constituted by it, with certain improvements," Finance minister Asim Dasgupta said.

Beneficiaries will include ten lakh government employees, teachers and other staff, while the government has to incur an additional expenditure of about Rs 5,700 crore annually, he said.

Dasgupta said that replacing the existing pay scales, a revised pay structure with five Pay Bands and distinct Grade Pay for each of the unrevised pay scales have been introduced.

Giving an example, Dasgupta said a Group-D employee now drawing a basic pay of Rs 2,600 plus dearness pay of Rs 1,300 would get Rs 6,600 as basic pay in the revised pay structure. The highest basic scale in Pay Band-5 will be from Rs 37,400 to Rs 60,000, he said.

WB govt to list temporary employees

KOLKATA: In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, The West Bengal government on Wednesday initiated a process of listing the temporary employees who have been working in several departments for more than 10 years. It is believed that the move has been initiated to offer these temporary employees permanent jobs.

State irrigation minister Subhas Naskar had raised the issue of offering permanent jobs to temporary employees of his department during the cabinet meeting held on Wednesday. After Naskar raised the issue, many other ministers also informed chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee who presided over the state cabinet meeting to consider the plight of those permanent employees working at their department for more than ten years.

It is learnt that Mr Bhattacharjee eventually asked the ministers to prepare a list of those temporary employees who have been working for more than 10 years and submit it to state finance minister Asim Dasgupta. It is learnt that more than 5,000 temporary employees are working in various state government departments.

The state cabinet has also decided to extend the East-West Metro project up to Howrah maidan instead of Howrah station. It was earlier decided that Rs 4500 crore would be required to complete the East-West Metro upto Howrah station. But now another Rs 198 crore would be required to extend the project up to Howrah maidan.