Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh
The dawn of New Year has not brought good news for the cash-strapped Punjab Government. With unpaid bills at the treasury, unpaid subsidy to the power utility and liability of dearness allowance of its employees, a depleting income of the state government has become a cause for concern.
The latest financial indicators for this financial year show that the state has managed to earn just 43 per cent of its target revenue receipts for 2019-20. While the state’s income through Goods and Services Tax (GST) has increased, the Centre has once again failed to release the state’s share of GST compensation for October-November (Rs2,000 crore), hitting the state’s precarious fiscal health further.
Till November, the state’s total revenue receipts stood at Rs33,862.81 crore as against a target of Rs78,509.70 crore. By this time last year, Punjab had managed to rake in more than 47 per cent of the targeted revenue receipts. The state’s tax revenue has shown a decline of almost Rs3,000 crore, while non-tax revenue (road tax and tax on services offered by the state) has shown a 50 per cent decline over last year.
The non-tax revenue collection till November was Rs1,751.97 crore, as compared with Rs3,471.91 crore in the corresponding period of 2018-19.
Interestingly, the state’s share of Central taxes is less as compared with last year (down by almost 10 per cent), while the grants-in-aid received from the Centre are double than last year. As compared to Rs3,134.31 crore received till November last year, the state has received Rs7,554.83 crore this year.
Officials in the state Finance Department say it is hardly enough to compensate for the delay in release of GST dues (compensation for August-September was released last month, but dues for October-November are pending, and second arrears of December-January will be due by the end of this month) and this is taking a toll on the state’s economy.
“Punjab lost an income of Rs5,000 crore per annum, which was collected as purchase tax on agricultural commodities. The gap is hard to bridge and is affecting the state’s finances,” said a senior official in the Finance Department.
The treasury has unpaid salary bills of more than Rs3,000 crore, arrears of almost Rs2,500 crore are due to employees and pensioners, and a power subsidy of more than Rs4,500 crore, too, is yet to be paid.
Officials maintain that the salary has been released, but employees claim otherwise. Sukhchain Khera, president, Punjab Civil Secretariat Staff Association, said that though the government claimed to have issued orders for electronic transfer of salary, the online payment system “has developed a snag”. As a result, employees did not get their salary on Wednesday. “We hope salary will be released on time this month,” he said.
