Rbi Refuses To Bail Out Orissa Govt

The Orissa government yesterday faced the embarrassment of being unable to pay the salary for January to its staff with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) refusing a further overdraft.

According to RBI sources, the Orissa governments overdraft with the central bank stood at Rs 144 crore till Monday. The state had not paid back the amount though seven days of the statutory 10-day repayment period had elapsed.

State government sources, however, claimed that they had managed to curb the crisis by paying back the overdraft amount yesterday from the Central government receipts due to the state.

Sources said many state employees and pension holders could not get their payments following RBI action. However, those offices which had drawn the salary bills for their staff before January 31 were not affected by the crisis.

 

There are over six lakh state employees in Orissa and the states monthly salary and pension bills are pegged at over Rs 200 crore. With the state government in the throes of a severe resource crunch due to burgeoning non-plan expenditure and interest burden, it is frequently running into overdraft problems with the RBI, sources said.

Ironically, while the government is struggling with its finances, various state employees unions and teachers organisations are mounting pressure on it to implement the revised central pay scales as recommended by the Fifth Pay Commission.

The confederation of gazetted and non-gazetted employees and teachers organisations have called a massive rally at Bhubaneswar on February 9 to press for their demand.

They have decried the state governments move to set up a fitment commission to examine various aspects of pay revision and termed it as delaying tactics.