West Bengal government has announced an 18% hike in dearness allowance for the state government employees. This announcement comes in the wake of severe discontentment among government employees over DA and a case pending before the Calcutta High Court in this regard. These employees include teachers and non-teaching staff of educational institutions also. It will come into effect from January 1, 2019. Apart from this, the government also announced a 10% interim relief to be implemented from January next. For this the state government will have to release ₹5,000 crore. The State government has spent about ₹27,000 crore in the last seven years.