District heat on IAS team - Cloud over govt staff salary in cash

KOLKATA/HOOGHLY/BURDWAN: With just a week to go before payday , the state government's offer to pay Rs 5,000 in cash to Group C and Group D employees and Rs 2,000 to contract employees encountered a hurdle on Wednesday , with RBI officials unwilling to commit on making the required cash available. The state requires at least Rs 300 crore for this.
The state has already issued notification asking Group C and D staff to apply for recieving a part of their salary in cash.But RBI officials said they could not assure the sum.
State home secretary Basudeb Banerjee met the RBI regional director and other bankers on Wednesday along with Raghavendra Singh, the special additional secretary with ministry of agriculture who is part of the IAS team that is touring Bengal to assess the ground situation. On Wednesday , a member of the team, Debjani Chakraborty , faced angry farmers when she went to inquire about the situation at the Cooperative Bank in Bhatar block, Burdwan. Muslena Bibi, a member of the co-operative bank, confronted her, saying: “It's a man-made crisis. Things were absolutely perfect before demonetization.“
Raghavendra Singh visited Koley Market in Kolkata and different markets in Chandernagore. He also visited some villages at Nalikul, Haripal, Tarakeswar and Champadanga. The central team made a surprise visit to Ramnarayanpur Agri Cooperative Bank and had talk with officers at length.
The team met peasants and potato seed traders at Tarakeswar and Champadanga.
Banerjee said people in North Bengal, particularly in tea gardens, were in dire straits. Only 40% of the ATMs were working, he said.