Amid the financial crunch, the West Bengal government has decided to go for rationalisation of manpower distribution in different departments and affiliate bodies under them instead of going for fresh recruitment for the optimum utilisation of the available workforce.

However, certain departments involved in emergencies have been given slight relaxations from these restrictions on fresh recruitments.

However, said state secretariat sources, even in the case of those departments for the time being only 50 per cent of the existing vacant posts can be filled up, and that too will be subject to clearance from the state government’s “empowered committee” on new recruitments.

At the same time, sources said, even after receiving the recommendations from the empowered committee, the final clearance has to come from the state finance department as well as from the office of the chief secretary.

At the same time, said a senior official from the state secretariat, the department having excess staff, though very rare, should release that excess staff for deployment in other departments.

Sources said these measures are being adopted to have control over the rising revenue expenditure.

In fact, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in a report last year, expressed concern over the increase in revenue expenditure in West Bengal resulting in a sharp increase in revenue deficit.

The report also pointed out that the revenue deficits could have been even higher had there not been instances of misclassification of revenue transactions under the capital section and non-account of other liabilities.

The CAG report has also raised questions about the budgetary management of the West Bengal government by pointing out the instances of huge excess expenditure in several grants.