Notwithstanding criticism of wasteful expenditure by opposition, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today appointed 12 more MLAs as parliamentary secretaries to advise ministers, raising their number to 25.
Banerjee told reporters that the workload of ministers was increasing as many handled several departments and so parliamentary secretaries would assist them.
Apparently brushing aside criticism in a section of the media that parliamentary secretaries would hardly have anything to do, she said "It is not necessary their jobs would be confined to departments, they can also work in districts."
She said that the parliamentary secretaries would enjoy the status of minister of state (MoS).
After the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011, the state Assembly had passed a bill to create the posts of parliamentary secretaries.
Caught between the need to beef up the delivery system and the obligation to keep the number of ministers within 43, (15 per cent of the total 294 MLAs), the chief minister had inducted a total of 13 MLAs as parliamentary secretaries to 'aid and advise' state ministers in January this year.
The opposition CPM had earlier slammed the passage of the bill saying the government was becoming a white elephant with every passing day and had alleged that the move was to accommodate the disgruntled MLAs.
The newly-appointed parliamentary secretaries included Chand Mohammad, the lone Samjawadi MLA from Murshidabad district who joined TMC recently and party legislator from Nandigram in East Midnapur district, Nilima Nag.
