Kolkata, Aug 2 (IANS) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s announcement earlier this week, enhancing the annual state government donations for community Durga Puja committees to Rs 1.10 lakh this year, up from Rs 85,000 last year, is all set to face legal challenges at Calcutta High Court this week.

Senior advocate of Calcutta High Court and CPI-M Rajya Sabha member Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya said on Saturday that he would be moving the Calcutta High Court next week against this decision for enhanced Durga Puja dole.

However, he expressed doubts on how far his move to approach the Calcutta High Court will bear fruit and expressed doubts that the court might go for the Puja vacation before the hearings in the matter are completed.

At the same time, the West Bengal unit of the BJP had already approached the Calcutta High Court to file a petition challenging the enhanced Durga Puja dole by drawing reference to a similar petition filed at the court in 2020.

The Calcutta High Court had permitted the BJP to file that petition.

At the same time, the reference of the enhanced Puja dole might also be highlighted as a point of argument at Supreme Court by the counsels of the state government employees filing a contempt-of-court petition against the state government for failures to clear 25 per cent of the Dearness Allowance arrears to the current and retired state government employees by June 30 as directed by the apex court earlier this year.

As per rough estimates, the enhanced Puja dole this year would cost the state exchequer somewhere between Rs 473 crore and Rs 495 crore, depending on the exact number of community Durga Puja committees eligible to receive that dole, an amount substantially higher than the previous year’s figure of Rs 365.5 crore.

While the figures mentioned above would be just the direct pay-out from the state exchequer, the actual expenditure would be much more, considering the massive 80 per cent electricity concessions provided to beneficiary Puja committees in addition to the annual dole.

Opposition parties have already lashed out at the state government over this enhanced Puja dole hike.

–IANS

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