Punjab’s former Finance Minister and People’s Party of Punjab president Manpreet Badal on Friday said that the State Government has finally accepted the fact of fiscal distress by urging the Centre to delay the Seventh Pay Commission report’s implementation.
“By writing to the Centre to slow down implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission report, the state government has finally accepted the fact of fiscal distress that flies in the face of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal who all along has been denying this crisis into which the state has landed,” said Manpreet. He said: “Punjab is among the five states including West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha that have written to the Prime Minister and Niti Aayog to go slow on the implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission recommendations as the states normally announce similar hikes for their employees.”
These states have sought more time to mobilise resources to absorb impact of the hiked pay scales thereby accepting the reality of financial crisis, he pointed.
The former finance minister also referred to the “admission of crisis” made by State Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa who had stated that Punjab’s finances were under stress and the burden of Pay Commission’s recommendations would certainly have an impact.
Questioning Sukhbir about his repeated statements that bogey of financial distress was being raised by the Opposition while there was no shortage of funds for development works, Manpreet asked as to which development works were being carried out by the state government from its own resources.
He also referred to the admission of increasing debt by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who had justified it on the logic of undertaking development works. “To what percentage of this debt has been used as capital expenditure,” he said.
Manpreet pointed out that the State Government had even denying the fact of Punjab being among the highly debt stressed states while the figures speak themselves.