West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra today said that the outgo on account of six per cent additional DA would be Rs 1,800 crore annually.
Mitra said that this was the third time that the new Trinamool government increased the DA that amounted to 23 per cent since May 2011.
The first two hikes were ten per cent and seven per cent respectively, he said.
Mitra said that the state government, despite the financial crisis, had been able to clear the DA backlog which was passed on by the previous Left Front government.
With this rise, the total amount of DA would be 58 per cent, Mitra told reporters outside the Assembly here.
The gap between the central DA and state DA from January would be reduced to 32 per cent from 38 per cent, he said.
