After a week-long delay, Punjab releases salaries of employees

The Cabinet had cleared the proposal to absorb such employees on Monday, which would cost the state exchequer an extra Rs 400 crore. The government had cleared the salary bill of Class C and D employees Tuesday considering that their salaries are lower than those of Class A and Class B employees. The IAS and PCS officers got their salaries only on Wednesday.

Cheema on Wednesday said that the financial health of the state is well maintained and the treasury has released more than Rs 3,400 crore. Salaries were delayed even during former CM Amarinder Singh and SAD-BJP regimes. When Amarinder Singh took over as the CM, the state was in overdraft and its accounts were sealed by the RBI.

In a statement issued here, Cheema said that payments, including salaries of Punjab government employees were delayed as the state was gearing up for revival of Special Drawing Facility (SDF) as per the CSF/GRF guidelines and norms by the Reserve Bank of India.

Thanking the government employees and other stakeholders for bearing with the state government, Cheema said that treasury has released Rs 2719 crore, including salaries and GPF besides releasing Rs 600 crore to PSPCL as power subsidy and Rs 75 crore to Sugarfed for clearing dues of sugarcane farmers.

Rejecting rumors regarding any financial crunch or crisis, Cheema stated that majority of the pending payments have been made with today’s release by the treasury and any other pending payments shall be released within a few days. He said that delay in payments was all due to a financial exercise done to ensure financial welfare of the state in long-term.

Reiterating CM Bhagwant Mann’s commitment to put state back on rapid growth track, Cheema said that it is an open secret that Punjab was reeling under financial mess when they gained people’s referendum in March 2022. “Now, the state government has been putting all efforts to revive the fiscal health of the state besides fulfilling the guarantees given to the people of the state”, said Cheema.

This was the first time after taking over the reins of the state in March that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was not able to pay salaries on time. The government usually pays salaries for the previous month on the first day of the next one.

According to the current fiscal budget, the state’s annual salary bill is pegged at over Rs 2,500 crore every month. Officials aware of the matter said freebies are bleeding the exchequer and the government is facing a crunch as the Centre stopped the GST compensation after June 30. In the last fiscal year, Punjab got Rs 16,000 crore as GST compensation from the Centre. This fiscal, the state Government has received only Rs 4,000 crore as compensation for the first quarter. The gap of Rs 12,000 crore will be huge to cover up, especially when the free power bill is being pegged at Rs 20,000 crore.

On Tuesday, a senior government functionary had told The Indian Express there was a delay in paying salaries to the employees as the government had invested Rs 1,000 crore in the market and was expecting a good return. He said they expected the employees would bear with the government as the investment meant dividends for the state exchequer. He had stated that they were trying to save every paisa for the state exchequer.