Hours before the Election Commission has been set to announce election dates today(on Friday), the governments of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu rushed to announce new welfare schemes.

While West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has announced a hike in wages of daily wage workers, the Office of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami announced a new gold loan waiver scheme.

West Bengal government said that the wages of unskilled labour will increase from Rs 144 to Rs 202 while the wages of semi-skilled labour will see a hike from Rs 172 to Rs 303. The government has also introduced a new category for skilled labour under which they will be paid Rs 404 per day.

In Tamil Nadu, announcing the loan waiver scheme, the government said that the scheme aims to alleviate the poor and women belonging to self-help groups. TN government stated, “They are being given a waiver of outstanding loans obtained from co-operative banks and co-operative societies”.