West Bengal, Tamil Nadu rush to announce new welfare schemes forward of ballot announcement

Hours earlier than the Election Commission is about to announce election dates at 4.30pm, the governments of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu rushed to announce new welfare schemes on Friday.
While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has introduced a hike in wages of every day wage staff, the Office of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Okay Palaniswami introduced a brand new gold mortgage waiver scheme.
The West Bengal authorities mentioned the wages of unskilled labour will improve from Rs 144 to Rs 202 whereas the wages of semi-skilled labour will see a hike from Rs 172 to Rs 303. The authorities has additionally launched a brand new class for expert labour below which they are going to be paid Rs 404 per day.
“A total of 56,500 workers (40,500 unskilled, 8000 semi-skilled, 8000 skilled) will benefit from this. These wages are in parity with rural workers’ enhanced pay (MNREGA unskilled & semi-skilled). Budget provision for this step has been made available for both FY21 and FY22,” Mamata Banerjee tweeted.
In Tamil Nadu, asserting the mortgage waiver scheme, the federal government mentioned the scheme goals to alleviate the poor and ladies belonging to self-help teams. “They are being given a waiver of outstanding loans obtained from co-operative banks and co-operative societies”.

According to ANI, Puducherry Lt Governor introduced a 2 perecent discount in VAT (Value Added Tax) on petrol and diesel within the union territory.
The bulletins come simply hours earlier than the Election Commission is scheduled to announce the dates for the Assembly elections in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu together with Kerala, Assam  and Puducherry.