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| Gov reduce the salary of gov employee |
Salaries of government employees may be cut after 22 July due to lock down
BENGALURU: If the government is forced to extend a lockdown lasting more than 22 weeks to contain the epidemic, Kovid will have to consider a cut in the salaries of its employees to pay for it.
The state has 5.5 lakh employees and the government spends around Rs 5,000 crore every month on salaries and pensions. Apart from this, the government will have to repay the loan and also pay for AIDS and subsidy, which means it will require a minimum of Rs 8,500 crore per month. The extended lockdown to pay salaries and pension recipients will become a difficult issue in the coming months.
However, the revenue so far has been around Rs 3,200 crore in July and the Finance Department is concerned that it may not be much due to the lockdown. There is no way this problem will get worse. A finance department official said, “If we can increase the business, then the issue of reducing salary should be taken into consideration.”
He said that raising funds to deal with Kovid is not a problem at the moment. The government has already allocated funds for all development projects except Operation Kovid and kept inflation low till June 2021. However, more needs to be done to control the fiscal deficit. Legislators also have to pay remuneration and benefits.
States were affected by the nationwide lockdown, but in June, through trade taxes, there were signs of recovery of Rs 610 crore – a little more than the same month last year. Other chiefs also showed an increase in July.
Prime Minister’s political secretary SR Biswanath said, “Yeddyurappa is not in favor of increasing the lockdown. He is not considering reducing the pay at the moment. But it depends on how wide the coveted position will be.”
However, epidemiologist Dr. Giridhar Babu said that a week-long lockout would not help.