Punjab govt employees don't have to worry about salaries: Manpreet Badal

Sanjeev Singh Bariana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, March 25

Punjab government employees do not have to worry about salaries, at least for the time being, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal told The Tribune on Wednesday.

“We have an effective system of financial management in place to handle the current situation of salary disbursement to our employees. All input flows are functional for allowing our staff to work out their disbursement details on time,” Badal said.

As there is growing apprehension among staff that they might default on their monthly EMIs, Badal said: “We have sufficient financial backing for the moment. Our Finance Secretary, along with his team, is working out a detailed paper on the worst-case scenario in case we are not able to handle the Covid-19 situation by April 16. We are also ready for a best-case scenario.”

“I am hopeful that we will be able to curtail the current crises, well within time, to avoid any salary goosebumps to employees next time,” he said.

Expressing concern over the current situation, Badal said: “Under the current scenario, our country is losing GDP worth Rs one lakh crore daily. The affected collections from petrol, diesel and alcohol, alone, were very big. Punjab alone is suffering Rs 1700 crore GDP loss daily."

Badal said: “Shortly, we will be faced with a bigger problem of managing the harvest season of the wheat crop. Not just the harvesting and storage but also the payments. We cannot postpone the harvest, but, we don’t know the definite solution at this moment.”