In what is being viewed as a “special treatment” being accorded to the State rank civil services officers ahead of  next year’s panchayat elections and 2024 general polls, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced a whole range of sops for the West Bengal Civil Services officers.

The WBCS officers who are working as Block Development Officers, Sub-Divisional Magistrates and District (or Additional) Magistrates would hence forward get special allowances on par with the Indian Administrative Services Officers, the Chief Minister said amid a big round of applause. She was speaking in a meeting with the State level bureaucrats.

Banerjee also said that the officers who had reached the maximum pay scale would get a monthly allowance of Rs 10,000 till their retirement, adding “in order to avoid stagnation in salary at the top level, we will also add four additional pay scales.”

Apart from this a couple of hundred new posts would be created for the WBCS cadre, the Chief Minister said.

“The WBCS officers who are the sons of the soil are also the face of our government… they have all the capabilities to become DMs and even departmental secretaries … we have been promoting more WBCS officers as DMs than in the earlier regime ... this will encourage the promising officers to do better work.”

Banerjee also said that new posts would be created for WBCS rank so that they could be accommodated in the new districts that the State was likely to create in future. According to sources the State Government was planning to create four more districts in addition to the present 23.

The Opposition BJP was prompt to react to the Chief Ministerial announcement, saying instead of paying the State employees the salary recommended by the seventh Pay Commission and instead of clearing their dearness allowances the Chief Minister was trying to create a new system of State created bureaucrats.

CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty said “while the BJP Government is trying to cover its failures by creating new controversies like demolition drive and other religious sentimental issues the Bengal Chief Minister was trying to cloak her failures by buying away the bureaucrats so that they could help her in elections.