M A I N   N E W S

Cash crunch: Punjab staff will have to wait for salaries
Ruchika M Khanna/TNS

Chandigarh, September 2
Three lakh employees of Punjab will have to wait for some more days to get their salary for August. With the state government having used its revenue receipts for the last month in order to clear its ways and means advances (a kind of overdrawal) and disburse pensions, it has been left with no money to pay almost Rs 1,200 crore as salary to its employees.

Sources in the Finance Department told The Tribune that the Treasury office has been asked to keep the salaries on hold till further instructions.

Pension payments were cleared on August 30 and it made a dent of Rs 500 crore in the state’s revenue. The Punjab Government is expecting to raise money from the auction of its state development loans and get some help from the Centre in a day or so to clear the salary bill. However, its pending bills, which have mounted to Rs 1,500 crore, are not expected to be cleared any time soon. These bills pertain to the withdrawals from the general provident fund, medical bills, travelling allowance and retirement benefits, which have been pending for almost a fortnight now.

The state has been in dire financial straits this fiscal. During August, not only did Punjab exhaust its ways and means advances limit of Rs 360 crore, but it also took an overdraft of Rs 300 crore.

It was during the last week that the state finally managed to clear the overdraft limit and its WMA advances reached Rs 320 crore, after the state used Rs 400 crore of its revenue receipts (part of the August revenue collections).

Pay pangs