Maharashtra govt announces huge Diwali bonus for BMC

The Maharashtra government on Friday announced a huge Diwali bonus for employees of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and BrihanMumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST). The announcement was made after chief minister Uddhav Thackeray chaired a meeting on Friday.

The BMC officials and officers in BEST will get a bonus of Rs. 20,000. Teachers/non-teaching staff in secondary schools will get Rs. 10,000 as bonus and health workers will get Rs. 5,300 as a bonus, according to Maharashtra government.

Apart from this, a bonus of Rs. 7,750 was given to the teachers and employees of the BMC school. Also, a bonus amount of Rs. 4,700 was announced to the teachers who are working on contract in BMC-run schools.

The Maharashtra chief minister's office (CMO) announced the bonus on Twitter. For BMC, this is the highest till now; for BEST, the amount is highest in last one decade.

Last year, BMC gave a bonus of Rs. 15,500 to all of its employees.

Friday's meeting was attended by Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar, Deputy Mayor Suhas Wadkar, standing committee chairman Yashwant Jadhav, BEST committee chairman Ashish Chemburkar, BEST general manager Lokesh Chandra, joint commissioner (general administration) Milind Sawant, along with BMC as well as BEST officials/staff union leaders.

The announcement comes months ahead of civic body polls. The elections for 227 seats of the BMC are expected to be held in February 2022.

Out of the total strength, Shiv Sena has 97 members, followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (83), Congress (29), Nationalist Congress Party (8), Samajwadi Party (6), All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (2) and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena one.