Bengal Pinches Pennies and Newspapers

A cash-strapped Bengal government has found a farcical way of cutting costs. Bureaucrats who get a newspaper allowance have been asked to lug them back to work.

A cash-strapped Bengal government has found a farcical way of cutting costs. Bureaucrats who get a newspaper allowance have been asked to lug them back to work.

A cash-strapped Bengal government has found a farcical way of cutting costs. Bureaucrats who get a newspaper allowance have been asked to lug them back to work. These will then be sold off and the money thus raised will go to state coffers. Any officer who doesn’t get the newspapers he or she reads at home back to office would have 15 per cent of the newspaper allowance deducted from his salary. The state finance department estimates that at least 15 per cent of this allowance, given to all officers from the rank of joint secretary and above, can be recovered by selling old newspapers to the kabadiwala. So babus can’t read their papers and keep them too.

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Jaideep Mazumdar