Mamata govt's lack of data-driven discourse leads to Bengal DA crisis

Kolkata, July 6 (IANS) With the West Bengal government failing to meet the deadline for paying 25 per cent Dearness Allowance (DA) arrears to the state government employees by the midnight of June 27 as directed by the Supreme Court, economists and insiders from the system said the basic flaws lie in the lack of data required for calculating the accurate dues and payout from state exchequer.

The first flaw, according to economists, is a persistent lack of clarity in the formula applied for calculating or determining the DA rates for state government employees, both in the context of the previous 5th Pay Commission and in the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission.

Had the state government followed the All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) as the benchmark for calculating and determining DA for the state government employees, such a lack of clarity could have been easily overcome by now, economists feel.

AICPI is followed as the benchmark for determining the DA rates by the Union government and most state governments. Nationally, AICPI is the accepted formula for this purpose.

However, the West Bengal government is not agreeable to accepting AICPI as the benchmark in fixing the Dearness Allowance rate for its employees. Hence the lack of clarity and data-driven discourse continued, which ultimately resulted in conflicts between the state government and its employees.

Currently, the West Bengal government employees receive Dearness Allowances at the rate of just 18 per cent, as against 55 per cent received by their counterparts in the Union government and even many other state governments.

With the Supreme Court deadline of June 27 at midnight for payment of 25 per cent DA arrears to the state government employees already over, the West Bengal government has already made a plea to the apex court seeking six months of additional time for paying the same.

Secondly, the exact number of beneficiaries in the state government, who were supposed to benefit from this Supreme Court order, as well as the category-wise breakup of beneficiaries, is not at all clear as of now.

Naturally, with the lack of clarity in the numbers under these two heads, there is also a lack of clarity and data-driven discourse on the payout from the state exchequer for each category and subsequently the total payout under all the categories combined.

Already, confusion has surfaced over the pressure on the state exchequer to pay the 25 per cent DA arrears to the state government employees as directed by the Supreme Court.

While one section within the state finance department claims that the payout will be a little over Rs 10,000 crore, another section quotes the figure to be slightly less than Rs 12,000 crore.

Economists said that had there been enough clarity in the data under the heads mentioned above, this confusion would not also have arisen.

Economists also feel that the hush-hush approach of the West Bengal government in portraying the actual arithmetic on this count has resulted in this lack of clarity and data-driven discourse. For a long time, the state government had not even made the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission, the latest, public.

The recommendations were made public only after a single-judge bench of Calcutta High Court directed the state government to do so. While passing the order the single- judge of Justice Amrita Sinha observed that since Pay Commission documents were not included in the classified category, maintaining such secrecy in the matter by the state government was unnecessary.

As regards the members of the state cabinet including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, all have maintained a brooding silence in the matter. On the issue of dearness allowance, the Chief Minister just said once the state government would move as per law.

--IANS

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