Diwali is just around the corner and the Maharashtra government ahead of November 4 (Diwali) has announced that it will be giving Diwali bonus to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) staff. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that BMC and BEST employees will be receiving the highest-ever bonus ahead of Diwali 2021.

In a meeting attended by Thackeray and other officials of the state including 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 Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation as well as BEST officials/staff union leaders, the decision to give the highest ever Diwali bonus was taken.

As per the state government, BMC officials and officers in the BEST  will get a bonus of Rs 20,000 while teachers/non-teaching staff in secondary schools will get Rs 10,000 as bonus. Health workers will get Rs 5,300 as a bonus. This decision will benefit over nine lakh BMC employees and around 34,000 BEST employees.

“Amid the lockdown imposed to contain the pandemic outbreak in March, workers of the BEST undertaking remained instrumental in getting the medical staffers and emergency service providers moving. Hence the government decided to give bonuses to BEST staffers on par with BMC employees,” said senior BMC officials about the decision.

Note that last year, BMC gave a bonus of Rs 15,500 to all of its employees. Apart from this, a bonus of Rs 7,750 was given to the teachers and employees of the BMC school. At the same time, a bonus of Rs 4,700 was announced to the teachers kept on contract in the BMC schools.