Govt. to continue salary deferment

Revenue dips to ₹3,100 crore; to discontinue ₹1,500 to white cardholders

Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao has instructed the officials to adopt a suitable strategy to meet essential expenditure in view of steep fall in revenue in the month of May ,too.

The government however has taken some decisions in view of the grim financial situation to continue the deduction of 75% in the salaries of people’s representatives, 60% for All India Administrative Services officers and 50% for government employees.

The 10% deferment would also continue in the salaries of outsourced and contract employees and 25% in the pensions of retired government employees.

The State’s treasury would be empty if the government paid full salaries to employees and pensions as it alone would cost the exchequer over ₹3,000 crore, he said. The government would discontinue payment of ₹1,500 to every white ration cardholder from June in the wake of relaxation of lockdown guidelines and workers would be able to find work, he said.

However, it decided to pay Aasara social security pensions as it is and give poor 12 kg of rice in June because of lockdown.

Chief Minister held a review meeting on financial situation of the State at Pragathi Bhavan here on Wednesday with Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Finance Principal Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao, CMO Principal Secretary Narsing Rao and other senior officials.

He said against a monthly revenue of ₹12,000 crore, State’s revenue fell drastically due to the lockdown. The State earned only ₹3,100 crore in May including the State’s share of Central taxes of ₹982 crore.

Though the government recently relaxed lockdown guidelines, there was not much increase in the revenue from registrations, road transport and other sources which continued to be slack. Thus all requirements have to be met only through the meagre income while loan repayments could not be avoided, said Mr.Rao.

He said the State has to pay an interest of ₹37,400 crore towards debt servicing per year. The government could not afford to default on monthly repayments. Though the State requested the Centre to reschedule the loans, Centre did not respond .

Though the FRBM limit was increased by the Centre, State would not be in a position to avail additional loans because of several conditions imposed by the Centre, he added.