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Journalism of Courage
JAMMU, DEC 23: The already cash-starved Jammu and Kashmir Government appears to be heading towards the worst ever financial crisis following its failure to elicit any concrete promise from the Centre for additional funds to cover its Rs 720 crore non-plan gap during the current financial year.
Sources said that in the absence of any Central help, the state government may not be able to release the last quarterly installment of the annual plan to its departments for development works in the coming January. “We will have to cut into the current year’s plan restricting it to only the salaries component,” a senior official said.
Giving details, sources said that though the Planning Commission had fixed the current year’s budget plan of the state at Rs 1,900 crore, the latter was virtually left with Rs 1,180 crore under the plan in view of the Centre’s assurance of help of only Rs 560 crore to cover its uncovered non-plan gap of Rs 1,280 crore.
About the remaining uncovered gap of Rs 720 crore in thenon-plan, it asked the state to mobilise its own resources. Of this Rs 1,180 crore in the hand of the state government to meet its annual plan, about Rs 600 crore was for the salaries of the employees which, however, totalled to Rs 2,400 crore.
In view of such a situation, the state government virtually had only Rs 580 crore to meet its other plan allocations for the current year. The amount was too meager to restore even the basic infrastructure facilities, which had been destroyed in most parts of the state due to militancy during the last nine years.
Faced with such a financial crisis, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah during his visit to Delhi had met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vapayee on Sunday. The meeting, which was held by the prime minister on the request of the chief minister, was attended among others by Union Home Minister L K Advani, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission and State’s Finance Minister Mohammad Shafi.
Though anofficial spokesman of the state government described the meeting as satisfactory, but did not give any details. Sources, however, said that though Farooq apprised the prime minister and other Central leaders about the financial crunch facing the state and its inability to cover the non-plan gap by mobilising its own resources, the latter did not make any promise on the matter.
Giving the current financial position of state, sources said the Government treasuries had pending claims worth Rs 206 crores on account of pending payments to contractors, pensions etc last year. However, these have swelled to a whopping Rs 806 crore during the current financial year.
Besides, the Government’s overdraft from the Jammu and Kashmir Bank has reached Rs 950 crore. It was paying interest on this overdraft, sources added.
Senior officials in the J&K government attributed the state’s current financial situation to the Centre not taking care of the uncovered non-plan gap while fixing the state’s annual plan. Besides, theCentre was yet to reimburse Rs 800 crore of the Rs 1,600 crore incurred by the state on account of security related expenses during the last nine years.
Sources said that this has been for the first time that the chief minister has returned from Delhi empty handed.
