Ludhiana, March 26
It is government of the employees, by the employees and for the employees in Punjab. This observation was made by the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, Mr Ramesh Inder Singh, while delivering the key note address at a seminar organised by the Ludhiana Management Association. In what appeared to be too bold remarks, usually unexpected of a bureaucrat, he admitted that most of the resources in the state were consumed by the unproductive sectors.
The Punjab Government was unable to keep the required funds for the priority sectors in the state as it had to spend more than 60 per cent of the budget on the salary and pensions of the serving and retired government employees and the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations has resulted in an additional burden of Rs 1,000 crore on the state exchequer, he said.
Mr Singh, while referring to the financial management in the state, said the oversizing of the government machinery has contributed to the increase in debt burden of the state to Rs 23,758 crore in 2000-01,which is further expected to rise to Rs 28,309 crore in 2001-02. The state was spending about 12 per cent of the state income on the interest payments alone. Consequently, inadequate amount was available for the development of the state.
The government has decided to downsize the government machinery and a fund of Rs 50 crore has been proposed in the present budget for offering an attractive voluntary retirement scheme to the government employees, he said. He also agreed with other speakers that the government should leave non-essential sectors to the private entrepreneurs. But he evaded the question of inadequate funding for the elementary education and vocational training institutes raised by some industrialists.
Defending the decision of the government to allocate a meagre amount of Rs 1.62 crore in the annual plan 2001-02 for the science and technology, he said, enough provisions have been made for the development of the infrastructure such as Rs 625.85 crore for energy, Rs 792.91 crore for general services, which would help industry indirectly.
