Tripura accuses Cong of misleading govt staff

AGARTALA: The ruling Left Front government in Tripura on Saturday accused leader of the opposition, Sudip Roy Barman, of misleading the government employees referring to the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) report.
Finance minister Bhanu Lal Saha said the Tripura government had demanded Rs 2,200 crore annual additional funds for implementation of the sixth central pay commission for the state government employees from then Union finance minister P Chidambaram in 2011.
“He refused to meet our demands and compelled us to set up a pay review committee. The state had to manage annual additional liabilities of Rs 1,050 crore from its own resources. Despite sincere efforts, salaries of our employees were not on a par with that of the Centre,” Saha said.
Leader of the opposition, Roy Barman of Congress, on Friday accused the Manik Sarkar-led Left Front government of diverting Rs 1473.12 crore in the past five years. The sum was allocated by the Centre for the employees of Tripura.
He alleged that since 2010-11, the Centre had been sanctioning funds for the state government employees to bring their salaries at par with their central government counterparts.
“Manik Sarkar has diverted the funds to other projects and Rs 124 crore was sent back to the Centre. Because of its anti-people approach, the state employees are today getting lowest salaries in the country,” Roy Barman said.
In 2009-2010, an amount of Rs 170.29 crore meant for the salary payment had remained unspent, Rs 160.54 crore had not been spent in 2010-2011. Again, Rs 211.27 crore, Rs 366.01 crore and Rs 565.01 crore remained unused in 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 respectively.
He said a consolidated Rs 1473.12 crore was sanctioned by the 13th finance commission for payment of salaries, allowances and pensions of serving and retired employees, but the entire amount was diverted.
Saha claimed Roy Burman had referred to the budget estimate of the state earmarked for the employees in the past five years. But, the amount is not meant solely for paying salaries, it include other expenditure related to employees. This was a common practice among all Indian states, he added.
“We have adopted several measures to cut down on the administrative costs. Tripura never delayed in payment of employees’ salaries on the first working day of every month. Moreover, despite serious constraints Tripura did not take any overdraft in the past 15 years,” Saha added.