West Bengal government announces festival bonus, ex-gratia payment for employees

If you are an employee of the West Bengal government, here is some good news even amid the surging Covid-19 second wave. The state finance department on May 6 issued a notification announcing bonus and ex gratia payment for its employees.

Employees whose basic pay and dearness allowance (DA) add up to Rs 36,000 a month would get Rs 4,500 as ad- hoc festival bonus.

Festival advance

Those employees whose basic and DA add up to a figure between Rs 36,000 and Rs 45,000 are would receive festival advance of Rs 12,000. This amount, however, will be recovered from the employee in 10 equal instalments.

Those employees who basic and DA add up to anything in excess of Rs 45,000 are not entitled to get any bonus or advance.

Those who draw pension less than Rs 31,000 a month will also get Rs 2,500 as festival ex gratia amount. Those receiving a pension higher than Rs 31,000 will not get anything.

Before Eid ul Fitr

Muslim employees will get these bonus and advances before Eid-ul-Fitar on May 14. The rest of the employees would get it before Durga Puja in October.

West Bengal has about 10 lakh state government employees including teachers of government and government-aided schools and the announcement will benefit a large section of them.

Every year, the government makes this announcement of festival payments just before Eid, which usually takes place June-July.

Difficult times

The state government is facing deep fiscal stress, so much so that in FY22 the government is expected to spend Rs 63,700 crore alone on debt repayment, that will consume 84.46% of the state’s own tax revenue.

The expenditure under the heads of debt servicing, salary and pension amounts to Rs 144,128 crore, which consumes 74.27% of the state’s entire revenue receipts of Rs 194,034 crore.