Durga Puja is the largest festival in West Bengal that sees celebrations spread over multiple days
Calcutta:
With the West Bengal elections months away, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Thursday generous gifts for the state’s working class, as well as for neighborhood clubs that host Durga Puja celebrations for communities.
Some 37,000 clubs will receive 50,000 rupees each, up from 25,000 rupees last year. They will also get a 50 percent discount on electricity expenses that will be exempt from firefighting fees or municipal corporation taxes.
“Due to the COVID pandemic, it has been a difficult time for all of us. We have decided to award a grant of Rs 50,000 to each Durga Puja committee in the state. We have also decided that the CESC and the state electricity board will give 50 for exemption. pennies for the puja committees, “he said at the Durga Puja coordination meeting in Calcutta.
Durga Puja is the largest festival in West Bengal that sees celebrations spanning several days. Bids organized in large tents or “pandalsCommunity clubs are an important part of the celebrations.
Ms. Banerjee asked the committees to set up outdoor canopies in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that visitors wear masks.
He also announced measures to help some of the poorest sectors of society affected by the coronavirus crisis.
Around 81,000 street vendors in the state will each receive Rs 2,000 as a gift from Puja.
Frontline health workers known as Asha, COVID-19 volunteers and members of the Civic Police Volunteer Force (CPVF), popularly known as the Green Police, will receive a salary increase of Rs 1,000 starting from next month.
The Anganwadi workers, who run a network of rural childcare centers, will get a retirement benefit of Rs 3 lakhs.
Mamata Banerjee’s measures are expected to find favor with the vast swath of beneficiaries, but heighten concerns about fiscal prudence amid the still-unfolding economic fallout from the coronavirus crisis in a cash-strapped state.
To some extent, his handouts to Durga Puja clubs are also expected to mitigate attacks by the BJP which has tried to paint the Trinamool Congress as discriminatory against Hindus while pursuing a policy of appeasing Muslims.
Separately, on Thursday the West Bengal cabinet also clarified the “Rajya Purohit Kalyan Prokolpo“, a scheme under which a monthly allowance of 1,000 rupees and free accommodation would each be allocated to about 8,000 Hindu Brahmin priests.
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