Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday send an SOS as the State is staring at the revenue losses to the tune of Rs 22,000 crore for the 2020-21 financial year, in view of the Covid-19 crisis.
Stepping in, all Cabinet Ministers have voluntarily decided not to take their salaries for the next three months and donate it to the Chief Minister’s Covid Relief Fund. At the same time, the Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh has appealed all the Government employees to take “voluntary cuts” in the wages to help the State meet the unprecedented contingency.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the Finance Sub-Committee, constituted recently under the Chief Minister to take stock of the fiscal implications of the Covid-19
pandemic and the lockdown or curfew triggered by it, and find ways of generating review to compensate for the losses and meet the costs resulting from the current crisis.
Finance Minister Manpreet Badal informed the meeting that of the Rs 88,000 crore revenue receipts estimated to be raised by the State for the current fiscal, only Rs 66,000 crore would now be generated in the light of the curfew or lockdown, which had brought all business, tax receipts etc to a standstill and also resulting in lower GST collections.
“All the Ministers in the State have voluntarily decided to donate their full salaries, for the next three months, to the CM’s Covid Relief Fund,” said an official spokesperson after the meeting.
Chief Secretary, acting on the directives of the Chief Minister who was not in favour of salary cuts of employees, issued an appeal asking “all Government employees, and all employees of PSUs, local bodies, Boards and Corporations, to volunteer to contribute their pay and allowance to the Government mission to combat Covid-19”.
The Chief Secretary suggested that Grade A and B employees should contribute 30 percent, Grade C should contribute 20 percent and Grade D should contribute 10 percent of their monthly emoluments for April, May and June 2020 to the CM’s Relief Fund to strengthen the Government’s efforts to deal with the deadly pandemic and the huge losses resulting from the current crisis.
The meeting also discussed several measures to mop up revenue in the prevailing situation, due to which the State was witnessing a massive financial crunch, that was likely to continue for another couple of quarters at least.
The Chief Minister urged the committee members to look at innovative measures to tackle the crisis.
Manpreet informed the meeting that with all manufacturing or production almost completely shut, and no taxes or duties forthcoming on account of Transport, Excise or Stamp Duty etc, the State was set to lose out on Rs 22,000 crore against revenue receipts.
“With GST collections to be much lower during the year and with the Centre yet to clear a significant amount of the state’s pending GST arrears, things will continue to worsen in the coming months,” he warned while pointing out that the State is also yet to receive any special financial package towards Covid relief from the Centre.
The sub-committee will meet again in a day or two to further discuss measures to generate more revenue and cut down expenses across departments to meet the costs for Covid related medical and relief operations, in addition to the routine Government expenditure.