Punjab Government decides to cut down the wasteful expenditure in various departments
Treasuries instructed not to clear any medical and travel and other advances
By Kulbhushan Kanwar
Chandigarh,September 4: Punjab Government claimed to have released
Rs. 500 crore yesterday as against total salary bill of Rs.1200 crore
for the salaries of three lakh employees. Rs.500 crore has already been
released for pensioner on August 30. The total expenditure on salaries
and the pension comes to the tune of Rs.1681 crore every month which
were kept on hold and various employee unions were up in arm against the
government.Punjab Government had no money to pay for its employees’ salaries and pension. The financial crunch came after the major banks refused to lend more money as Punjab already exhausted its borrowing limit. Punjab Government was left with no other option but to ask PUDA to raise 1000 crore loan by mortgaging its properties. Canera Bank will charge 9.95% whereas Bank of India will charge 10% interest against Rs.500 crore each. Punjab government has also assured its surety on the loan amount. Punjab Finance Minister Prminder Singh Dhinsa said there in no need to panic because the state experiences a lean revenue period between July and September. He is hopeful that revenue growth will pick up from September onwards. Dhinda further said that the money raised by PUDA is not a loan that we have to return. It is a payback from PUDA in lieu of land amounting to Rs.5000 crore which the government had transferred to it for building infrastructure.
The state has already borrowed Rs.1737.14 crore till now from (Punjab National Bank: Rs.654.61 crore, State Bank of Patiala: Rs.453.48 crore, Punjab State Cooperative Bank: Rs.541.75 crore, Malwa Gramin Bank: Rs.68.40 crore and Punjab and Sind Bank: Rs.18.90 crore).
The Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said in Mukatsar on Saturday that the reports are absolutely concocted and baseless. He refuted all charges and said that state government is financial sound enough to meet its fiscal obligations. Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa alleged that state government has already availed an overdraft of Rs.375 crore and it is now arranging a sum of Rs.367 crore more by disposing of government land and property. The government is bowering indiscriminately and spending recklessly.
Kulwant Singh Chahal, State General Secretary of Punjab State Ministerial Services Association (Regd.) said the state government has already issued instruction to the treasuries for not to clear any medical and travel and other advances till the financial condition improves. He said no such bills have been cleared after 13.7.2013. Is it fare that the travelling allowance bills of the ministers have been cleared but the employee’s bills are kept pending? The reputation of state government is at stake. The Punjab National Bank, State Bank of Patiala and Punjab and Sind Banks has already tern-down the request of Punjab Government to raise loans even against securities and bonds on the pretext that the government had defaulted on repayment of earlier loans amounting to the tune of Rs.1000 crore and made it clear that no loan could be advanced for infrastructure development and unproductive purposes just like payment of salaries, pension and other such expenses. He further alleged that Punjab government has no money to pay salaries but precious tax payers’ money being lavishly spent on buying a new helicopter, two BMWs worth Rs.2.45 crore each for CM and Dy.CM. They don’t hesitate in renovating offices of some of its ministers, buying new SUVs for its cabinet rank ministers.
Need to check revenue leakage and stop wasteful expenditure
VIP security outside the state is also one of the causes of wasteful expenditure. As many as 25 individual protectees living outside Punjab are being provided security at the cost of state expense and deployed 207 police personal and three sections of CRPF which cost Rs.9,28,18,488 annually. Which include Ministers Preneet Kaur, Santosh Chaudhary, Manish Tewari, Chief Justice of J&K High Court Justice MM Kumar, MPs Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Balwainder Singh Bhunder, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Rattan Singh Ajnala, Paramjit Kaur Gulshan, Sher Singh Ghubaya, Ashwani Kumar, Partap Singh Bajwa, Ambika Soni, Vijayinder Singla, Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Avinash Rai Khanna, Manohar Singh Gill, Naresh Kumar Gujral, Avtar Singh Karimpuri, Former DGP KPS Gill , Dinesh Saini IAS, M.S.Bitta and former Punjab Lt.Gen(Retd.) BKN Chhibber.
High Court vide its order dated 16 July ordered the state government that it cannot deploy its security men in other provinces permanently for providing security. The court had made it clear that cover can be provided during transit for not more than three days and inform the Central or State government.
It is strange that the security have been provided to 1294 public functionaries, private individuals. 25 persons are the children and family members. In the list of persons who are provided securities are 65 are facing criminal charges including 6 MLAs some of them are former MLAs facing charges u/s 307, 36 religious leaders, 19 media persons and 75 people categorised as others. The expenditure during peace time was 16.44 crores in 1991 to Rs.80 crores in 2000-2001 excluding costs of account of vehicles and administrative expenses.
The financial crises are not overnight development. Just go back to 1997 shortly after taking over the SAD-BJP government introduced sales tax concessions worth Rs.443 crores each year. But in view of new national policy some of them were withdrawn in January, 2000. But state government did not adopt agreed floor rates for commodities like diesel, pesticides and fertilizers and as a result Rs.250 crores was lost every year. Concessions for individual units resulted another loss of Rs.300 crores. Exemption from sales tax given to proposed Oil refinery Bathinda was another cause of loss of 15,000 crores over a period of 15 years. This is perhaps the highest exemption given to such a project in any state. Formers were given free power for tube wells is another reason for loss of PSEB for Rs.2000 crores every year. Despite all these crises granted annual sales tax concessions of Rs.900 crores per year. No sincere efforts were made to cut cost from other spheres to make up for these concessions.
The opposition party raised finger at the purchase of Rs.70 crores for an aircraft exclusively for Deputy Chief Minister and alleged its use for personal convenience. Punjab Government had already two choppers and the second helicopter was purchased for Rs.38 crores just one month before the purchase of an aircraft. Before purchasing aircraft Dy.CM was hiring chopper to visit Delhi and his native village on rent @ Rs.1.40 Lakh per hour? On the other hand government had no funds for making payment to beneficiaries of shagun scheme, widow and old age pension. Under the pretext of financial crunch the scheme for free education for poor girls studding in 11th and 12th class was withdrawn.
But however Punjab Government is on the right path and decided to cut down the wasteful expenditure in various departments of the government. It is better to be late than never. State Government has notified a committee under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh. The committee would work to reduce expenditure, especially the non-plan expenditures of various departments and bring more transparency in financial work of the departments. The committee would look into the expenditure incurred on non-plan side for the last 5 years.
The Chief Secretary is the chairperson of the committee and vice-chairman of the Punjab State Planning Board has been included as special invitee. In addition, Principal Secretary, Finance, Secretary, Planning and Special Secretary to Chief Minister of Punjab have been included as members and Secretary, Expenditure as a convener of the committee.
While starting SAD-BJP second innings it has imposed ban on the purchase of new vehicles, announced 10% cut on allowances of ministers and chief parliamentary secretaries, cut on fuel and electricity charges which comes to annual saving of Rs.250 crore. Government has also decided to print all its ordinary and extraordinary gazette notifications from state government printing press housed at Mohali which is likely to save one crore annually. In addition to that Punjab government has also directed its departments to restrict spending on power and water within the permissible limit.
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