Even though the State Government has made tall claims of being very serious to create employment opportunities for youths, the real picture is quite different. It has turned a magpie.
It is so understood from the fact that over 46,000 enlisted Government posts of different categories have been abolished during the last 15 years. Besides, an alarming number of 1.6 lakh posts are still lying vacant.
While trying to overcome the burden of regular payment of salaries and pensions, the Government has adopted a cut-short attitude in the name of reformation and is only encouraging creation of employment opportunities through private companies.
According to information, the current year's State Budget is Rs 84,487.37 crore and the Government is expecting to get Rs 21,280 crore from the own tax source. Against this, it has been estimated that a total of Rs 26,957.80 crore would be paid towards salaries and pensions. It means the estimated salary and pension expenditure amount is Rs 5,677 crore more than its own tax collection.
As a consequence, the Government has been forced to abolish 46,000 posts and is not filling up 1.6 lakh vacant posts, according to finance experts.
During the current year, the Government would spend Rs 18,364.60 crore towards salary payment and Rs 8,593.20 crore towards pension payment. Even though the own tax collection has been increased by 10 times since 2000-01, when it was Rs 2,184 crore, the increase in expenditure towards salary and pension has also increased.
The State Government has targeted to pay Rs 2906.70 crore towards loans and Rs 5,350 crore towards interest. If expenditure estimates of salary, pension and loan payment are taken into account, the total sum stands at Rs 35,214.50 crore, which is 42 per cent of the State Budget.
After the Sixth Pay Commission came into force, the total amount of Government employees' salary and pension payments has been intensively increased. While a total amount of Rs 3,802.84 crore was being paid towards salary and pension in 2000-01, the amount increased to 10,749.98 crore in 2010-11 when the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations were implemented. During this period, the pension amounts of retired Government employees increased from Rs 832.7 crore to Rs 4,011 crore.
The State's loan amount was 21,001.88 crore in 2000-01 and it increased to Rs 46,747.45 crore in 2014-15. It has been estimated that the State's loan burden would increase to Rs 56,640.12 crore by March 2016.
This being the backdrop, it seems futile to expect new employments from the State Government.