Govt borrows ₹1,000 cr to pay salary for Sept

RUNNING SHORT State has monthly salary bill of ~2,000 cr, pension liability of ~650 cr

CHANDIGARH : Facing an acute fund crunch due to falling tax receivables, the Punjab government has taken a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore to pay salaries and pension of staff in government departments for September. The state runs up a monthly salary bill of Rs 2,000 crore and a pension liability of Rs 650 crore. Of the total liability of Rs 2,650 crore, the govt had arranged Rs 1,600 crore from own sources. Finance department officials claimed the disbursal began on Wednesday. The state government runs up a similar bill (around Rs 2,650 crore) as monthly instalment on outstanding debt and interest liabilities. The state provides another Rs 670 crore monthly power subsidy for free power to agriculture pumpsets and other consumer sections. Till afternoon, the salary had not been credited to staff accounts.

“This is the Diwali month. We are eagerly awaiting the credit of salary so than we can start our shopping,” said an employee with the state government.

for current paddy procurement.

Sources in the finance department say with new tax regime of GST coming into effect from July 1, there have been issues with streamlining of the system. Contrary to fall in the GST receivables in first two months, the finance department is expecting collections to increase once the system was streamlined. Till about 2pm, the civil secretariat staff were awaiting credit of salaries into their accounts.

FM DOWNPLAYS ISSUE

Finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, whom is in Gurdaspur for October 11 bypoll, denied that there was any salary crunch, when quizzed on the hue and cry among government staff for delay in salary. He claimed that the salary had been credited into bank accounts of all the government employees.