Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, Apr 11: Due to financial crunch, thousands of Government employees in Jammu and Kashmir could not get their salaries as cash starved State treasuries failed to arrange money by March 31.
The failure in clearing monthly salaries of a big number of Government employees has created liability of approximately Rs 500 crores on the State Government, which has to adjust the same in this financial year.
The affected employees, whose number is in thousands and belong to different departments, will have to wait further for getting their due salaries till the State Government provides additional grants for clearing the liability.
According to the official sources, despite release of funds by the Government, thousands of employees could not get their pending salaries up to the month of February because of non-availability of adequate cash in the State Treasuries, mostly in Jammu, and alleged pick and choose adopted in the clearance.
Majority of these affected employees belong to Education Department, whose salaries were pending for the couple of months due to delay in release of funds and other technical reasons, sources added.
Those affected employees, whose salaries have been pending for months together, include the Lecturers and staff of Government Colleges, which were opened after 2005 and the Masters, repatriated to their home districts without adjustment against post.
Pertinent to mention here that the Lecturers in the newly opened Government Colleges since 2005, are paid salary under Plan and grant for the same was not released since October last. Similarly, the repatriated Masters are also not getting regular salary as they have not been adjusted against any post.
The non-payment of salary has severely hit the affected Government employees, mostly class IV, who are finding it difficult even to pay annual charges of their school going wards and repayment of loan installments etc besides meeting other expenditures.
Due to the crisis, Income Tax return of the affected employees also could not be filed as their salary was not released for the month of February, which is paid to them after deduction of tax for the concluding financial year, sources explained.
When contacted, Director Accounts and Treasuries Lochan Lal admitted that due to non-availability of cash, number of bills on account of salaries of the Government employees could not be cleared by March 31. Data in this regard is being collected from different Government treasuries for establishing the exact amount of the liability, which would be cleared only after the supplementary allotment is made in this financial year, he added.
Giving reasons behind the problem, the Director explained that some bills were passed on the last week of the month, mostly on March 28 and 29, and could not reach the Treasuries timely for requisitioning of cash for clearance of the same.
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