Employees employed by the Government in post January 1, 2012 period are governed by New Pension Scheme. A new category of State employees has been thus created which are dealt with slightly outside the broad frame of State Service. Salary amount is drawn under the head ‘Pensioner Charges’ below Major Head: 2071-Pension and Other Retirement Benefits. Thousands of employees falling under the NPS are without salary for several months and the reason given is that of non-availability of funds. This has impacted employees in a number of departments but especially the Education Department where the number of such employees is the largest. Financial authorities attribute sudden pause in payment of salary to joining, posting and transfer of officers/officials to offices where either no provision for NPS is available due to entire existing non-NPS staff or due to NPS provision projection for lesser number of posts before joining of the new incumbents.
The question is did not the Finance Department take into account the situations that could arise after the NPS is implemented in letter and spirit. Commonsense says that the reasons identified for a break in regular payment of salary should have been considered at the time of implementing the new scheme. That has not been done. However, now that the problem has arisen, financial authorities shall have to find a solution before the problem begins to hurt the employees. How can a family survive in these hard times without regular income? It is inconceivable. Letting employees go without money on important festivals like Eid is very anti-social act.
Why does non-availability of funds happen and become a big hurting issue when we have the regular budget and it is discussed by the Assembly and passed? Evidently, there is some technical flaw that hinders smooth release of salary to the employees. We need to have effective financial grievance removal mechanism where impended or impending financial issues would be considered in advance and preemptive measures taken to stave off inconvenience to the cadres.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel