The appointment of Samrat Chaudhary as Chief Minister of Bihar, replacing Nitish Kumar, may have been a significant gain for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as it secured yet another state with a Chief Minister from its own party. However, this spelled a dire fate for employees working in various departments in Bihar, university teachers, and pensioners. This dire fate is exacerbated by the fact that they have not received their salaries or pensions for four months. Despite repeated requests to the government, the lack of salaries and pensions has prompted them to consider a strike. Faced with this plight of employees across various departments and university staff, the government led by Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary has begun making various excuses and now talks about releasing their funds soon. Although the Bihar government’s 2026-2027 budget is a surplus budget of ₹347,589.76 crore, with a revenue surplus estimated at ₹1,143 crore (0.1% of GSDP), meaning the government’s revenue income will exceed its normal expenditures.
Based on this positive provision, Samrat Chaudhary is making various excuses for the four-month non-payment of salaries to employees of various departments in his state, as well as pensioners. Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary claims that these departments and the university have not submitted utilization certificates for their positions, leading to this situation. If it were a matter of just one month, the money would be accepted, but would only those departments whose employees have not received their salaries for four months not submit utilization certificates? And if they have not, then why has no action been taken against such officials so far? Well, all of this has been discussed, and now that Samrat Chaudhary has talked about releasing the funds, a ray of hope has emerged for state government and university employees and pensioners waiting for their salaries and pensions.
Considering the steps being taken by Chief Minister Samrat Chaudhary in this direction, the situation appears as follows:
Universities and Colleges: Approximately ₹998-999 crore has been released for salaries and pensions pending since March for over 50,000 teachers, employees, and pensioners of state universities and degree colleges.
Increase in Minimum Wage: The Bihar government recently revised the minimum wage. Wages have been fixed at ₹436 per day for unskilled workers and ₹672 per day for highly skilled workers.
Employed and Contractual Workers: A committee has been formed under the chairmanship of the Development Commissioner to review and revise the honorarium of over 4 lakh employed and contractual workers in the state, so that their salaries can be brought at par with the market rate and regular employees.
Seventh and Eighth Pay Commission: The dearness allowance (DA) of state employees is also being increased continuously and the Eighth Pay Commission is being discussed across the country, which will also impact state employees in the future.