Diwali bonus for Goa government employees by this month-end

PANAJI: Despite loss in revenue due to ban on mining exports, the Goa government has decided to give Diwali bonus to government servants by this month end.

The bonus would be given to around 45,000 government servants before Diwali, a senior state finance department official told PTI today.

Diwali will be celebrated on November 3. He said that there are total 60,000 government servants employed but only 45,000 are eligible for the benefit of bonus according to rules.

The bonus would put an additional liability of Rs 35 crore on the state exchequer.

The state government has also increased the dearness allowance (DA) of the government servants by 10 per cent which will be paid from retrospective effect from the month of July onwards.

"The arrears of DA would be paid in next month which would amount to Rs 30 crore," he said, adding that the additional liability due to revised DA would be Rs 7.5 crore monthly.

The state government has been paying Rs 130 crore monthly as salary to government servants.