Braving grave financial constraints, the State government is gearing up to clear the salary and service pension bills as well as other committed expenses from April 2.
Finance Department sources told The Hindu that the resources at its command would be channelised for disbursing the salary and service pensions as well as the arrears due to contractors and other sections over the next two months. The outgo for salary and pension has been pegged at about ₹5,000 crore.
In addition, payment of welfare pensions for four months starting from December last and an ex gratia of ₹1,000 to lottery vendors who have been left in the lurch on putting to hold the sale of lottery tickets till April 15 are also among a slew of other payments that are set to be cleared from the treasury in the fortnight ahead.
Battered by the COVID-19 outbreak, some of the prime sources of revenue from the sale of lottery tickets, IMFL and petrol and diesel have virtually dried up. The share from the sale of petrol and diesel have been progressively declining over the past few months and following the lockdown, it has become a trickle.
The loss of revenue on halting the sale of lottery ticket alone has been put at about ₹1,500 crore. An equally plum share from the sale of IMFL has also been blocked on imposing prohibition.
The plan is to complete the procedures for open borrowing in the new financial year before completely exhausting the resources at its command so that the government could tide over the crisis without any hitch.
The alleged silence of the Centre in clearing the Goods and Services Tax compensation arrears amounting to ₹3,000 crore and also the repeated pleas to raise the annual borrowing limit continues to vex the State governments, including Kerala that are facing serious resource crunch.
The only glimmer of hope is a go-ahead on the State’s demands from the Centre in the changed context, sources said.
