Salary Burden Hits State’s Development!  

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: Development in Assam is badly retarded by the huge flow of funds meant for salaries etc head. This head alone spends around 28 percent of the State’s total budgetary allocations. It leaves a meagre 26 per cent funds for development and other activities. The State’s own revenue is so meagre that it cannot even meet the expenditure meant for the salaries of the around five lakh employees of the government. In such a ground reality, the State has to entirely depend on central funds for development.

Let’s take the total allocation of the State’s 2019-20 annual budget as a case study. The total budgetary allocation for the current fiscal stands at around Rs 1 lakh crore (exactly Rs 98,000 crore). From this Rs 1 lakh crore, around Rs 43,500 crore – Rs 28,000 crore for employees’ salaries and pension, around Rs 15,000 crore for office expenses, around Rs 500 crore for employees’ travelling allowances etc – is a mandatory expenditure. Assam does not have any precedent of spending more than 70 per cent of the total budgetary allocation of funds. It implies that around Rs 70,000 crore of the around Rs 1 lakh crore budgetary allocation will be spent in the current fiscal. Minus the around Rs 43,500 crore must expenditure, a meagre Rs 26,500 crore is left for development and other purposes.

According to sources, in every annual budget a number of schemes with allocation of funds against them are announced. However, many such schemes seldom succeed because of fund crunch. Is the mere 26 per cent of the total budgetary allocations left for development enough? Isn’t the 28 per cent expenditure of the total budgetary allocation only on salary etc head too heavy a burden impeding development? The lopsided salary head – development head expenditure is quite glaring in the State. Does it augur well for a State where development is a far cry?

This is not all. The State has some central schemes that have State’s shares. Non-payment of State shares on time often leads the Centre to block its subsequent installments for its schemes in the State. Development of the State, in such a situation, is indeed an uphill task. And it is indeed a fact that the State fails to make headway on development against the huge flow of funds for employees’ salaries. Should the government think only for the wellbeing of its around five lakh employees? Is it not the duty of the Government of Assam to think of around 3.20 crore people of the State? It’s high time the State government capped its expenditure on salary head.

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