Part cash pay likely for govt staff

HT, 26 Nov 2016, Kolkata: The Centre and some state governments may pay a portion of the salaries of lower-level employees in paper currency to offset the cash crunch caused due to demonetisation.

Worker unions across the country have demanded that employees be given their salaries in cash, so they would be spared the bother of standing in long bank queues just to withdraw money. The unions cited the finance ministry’s act of providing central government employees an advance salary of `10,000 in cash to buttress their case. “If central government employees can get advance salary in cash, why can’t we get next month’s salary in the same way?” the Maharashtra employees union asked state chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The unions also sought two months of their salary in cash, besides leave travel allowance from December 6 to attend the winter session of the Maharashtra assembly.

Following this, Fadnavis instructed officials to check if there was enough paper currency for the purpose. If the banks provide the money, it would be disbursed through 12,000 treasury counters across the state, sources said.

Meanwhile, the BJP government in Haryana announced that it would provide `10,000 in paper currency to its group C and D employees. “The rest of the salary will be transferred to their bank accounts as usual,” said state finance minister Captain Abhimanyu earlier this week.

In Delhi, non-gazetted employees of the state government, police and the New Delhi Municipal Council would get `10,000 in cash. People who don’t want the money in paper currency can opt out of the scheme.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, for his part, demanded `10,000 crore from the Centre to make cash payments to state government employees. “I have requested the finance minister to make the Reserve Bank of India release the cash,” he said.

The Lok Sabha (LS) secretariat has already asked its banker to provide paper currency for paying its 4,000 employees. “We will give `10,000 to group C employees as advance payment,” said LS secretary general Anoop Mishra.

As the central government alone has around three million employees, half of which are in the C and D grades, such a move is likely to put further pressure on the already-overstretched banking system. The number of state government employees, on the other hand, is estimated to be around 25-30 million.

However, some states – such as Uttar Pradesh – do not see any problem in directly transferring salaries to employees’ bank accounts. “The government transfers salaries to the employees’ accounts through the Real Time Gross Settlement System. The Centre has set a limit for weekly withdrawal. So, employees are not going to have any problem withdrawing money,” said Uttar Pradesh principal secretary (finance) Anoop Chandra Pandey.