Arrears to govt. staff will be paid as soon as financial situation improves: Balagopal
Kerala Finance Minister says the government has a clear road map in place to tide over the financial crisis
The arrears of benefits due to government employees and pensioners will be given as soon as the government’s financial situation improves, Finance Minister K.N. Balagopal told the Assembly on Wednesday.
He said this in reply to a submission by Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan, who pointed out that the government was committing a huge injustice to government servants, teachers and pensioners by holding back the last pay revision’s arrears and other benefits due to them.
The government owes dearness allowance arrears of 39 months, which come to ₹15,000 crore and the last five years’ leave surrender benefits, which come to ₹14,000 crores, to employees. Mr. Satheesan pointed out that the government had not even appointed the new pay commission whose recommendations should be implemented before July 1.
The pay revision arrears would come to ₹6,000 crore. The arrears due to teachers, employees and pensioners together came to a whopping ₹42,000 crore, Mr. Satheesan said. He pointed out that close to one lakh pensioners had died waiting for the various benefits.
Crisis after COVID
Mr. Balagopal said the government had placed restrictions only on the leave surrender benefits and it did not mean that the government would not be giving it at all. The restrictions were part of the measures that the government had to take to overcome the financial crisis in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
He said that the last grade employees and the part-time contingent employees had been totally exempted from this restriction. He claimed that of the four instalments of revised pension arrears, all three had been given and only ₹600 crore remained as arrears.
Medisep claims
The government had announced that the pay revision arrears would be given as four instalments and that this would be merged with the Provident Fund. As for Medisep, the government was collecting ₹500 a month from beneficiaries as premium under Medisep and 97% claims had been accepted. In fact, the claim amount far exceeded the premium collected.
He claimed that during COVID, unlike Kerala, very few States had implemented pay revision. Of all the PSC appointments happening across the country, 60% were in Kerala.
Salary expenditure up
The 11th pay revision began to be implemented on April 1, 2021. With the pay revision, the government’s salary expenditure went up from ₹1,32,000 crore in the previous year to ₹1,63,000 crore in 2021-22.
He said the government had a clear road map in place to tide over the financial crisis it was going through and that it was only because of this that the daily expenditure and welfare activities were being carried out smoothly.
The government was on the path of financial consolidation and the financial situation would improve soon, Mr. Balagopal claimed.
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