Sops for Bengal government employees ahead of LS polls

With an eye on the coming Lok Sabha election, the Mamata Banerjee government today announced sops for state government employees - a housing project and cashless health insurance upto Rs 1 lakh.
State IT minister Partha Chatterjee told media after a state cabinet meeting, presided over by the Chief Minister, that Rs 100 crore would be allotted for disbursal of house building loans to 2.92 lakh government employees.
"The scheme for housing loans will be simplified and conditions for it will be made easy with the amount sanctioned for loan," Chatterjee said.
The minister said land for the housing project would be provided free of cost and 50,000 flats would come up under a PPP model, of which 30,000 units would be built by the PWD. The remaining 20,000 units would be constructed by the State Housing Board.

Chatterjee said the government had earlier launched a housing project for the police force. In 2006, the government had conceived a similar project, but it fell through.
Chatterjee said the cabinet has also extended for two years the West Bengal Health Scheme for government employees which had expired on March 31, 2013.

Unlike the existing system where employees are reimbursed for their health spend, they would now get cashless benefit upto Rs 1 lakh.
The projects were announced earlier by Mamata Banerjee at a programme on February 22.
Banerjee had told state government employees that financial crunch had made it difficult for her to match the dearness allowance given by the Centre.

"If we give DA according to the central rate, we will require an additional Rs 12,000 crore a year. Where will we get the amount? The Centre has deducted Rs 70,000 crore from the state's income since we came to power," the Chief Minister had said.