The Uttar Pradesh government has defended its decision to abolish six allowances of the state employees in view of the financial crisis caused by the nation-wide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. The state government maintained that the Central government had also abolished these allowances for its employees after the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
UP Finance Minister Suresh Khanna said here on Thursday that the state government abolished the allowances only after it was forced to do so due to the serious financial crisis. His statement came after several state employee unions and opposition parties slammed the UP government for abolishing the six allowances. The new austerity measures have angered the state employees.
The state government has also suspended the operation of as many as 35 labour laws for the next three years.
Khanna said that when the 7th Pay Commission recommendation was implemented, the Central government had cut all allowances other than house rent, dearness allowance and salary. “Since then the Central government has not been giving any other kind of allowance to employees,” he stated.
Khanna said the UP government was doing only what the Central government had already done.
“The allowances have been abolished in the state due to the radical change in economic situation because of COVID-19. We have not received even 10 per cent of the tax revenue that we were supposed to get in the month of April,” he said.
Following the steep fall in revenue collection due to the crisis caused by COVID-19 and lockdown; the UP government had abolished six allowances for the staff of the Public Works Department, Irrigation and other engineering departments and 16 lakh state employees and teachers. The abolition of allowances is estimated to cut the governments expenditure by Rs 1,500 crore.
The government abolished city compensatory allowance (CCA) and secretariat allowance and special allowance given to police personnel with effect from April 1. On April 25, the government had freezed the dearness allowance at July 1, 2019 level till July 1 2021. The government on April 25 had announced to suspend the CCA, secretariat allowance and allowance for police personnel’s, later it all were abolished.
Meanwhile, government employees’ organisations UP State Employees’ Joint Council and UP Secretariat Association (UPSA) have threatened to launch an agitation against the abolition of six allowances of the state employees.
On Wednesday, the office-bearers of the joint council, a group of over 100 organisations, held a meeting with the Chief Secretary over the issue. However, it was inconclusive.
UPSA president Yadavindra Mishra called the move in the times of COVID-19 pandemic “discouraging” and unjust. He said discussions were being held with various organisations to chalk out a joint strategy for launching an agitation.