The Nitish Kumar government’s eagerness to furnish the bills for thousands of crores of rupees spent in welfare projects over six years to the accountant-general has spread discontent among the state’s officials currently engaged in preparing the bills. They are now planning to revolt.
Following the Patna high court’s July 15 suggestion for a CBI probe — order was later stayed on July 23 — into the CAG’s report that detailed contingency (DC) bills for the state government’s expenditures worth Rs 11,412 crores were yet to be submitted, the government asked officials its various departments to speedily regularise the bills pending between April 1, 2002 and March 31, 2008.
To ensure speed following rising political outcry against the alleged “treasury scam”, the government put a ban on the payment of salaries of nearly two lakh employees till all pending bills were regularised and duly submitted.
Consequently, with all withdrawals by drawing and disbursing officials (DDO) banned except a few rare exceptions, treasuries in Bihar are currently not accepting salary or provident fund advance bills, said officials.
“Officials of the state government now have no time even to attend to their urgent family work because they are under tremendous pressure to arrange such high number of bills. While innocent employees are paying the price for failures by the DDCs to discharge their duties, the ban on salaries for July is already hurting nearly two lakh employees,” said Mr Anil Kumar Singh, the general secretary of the Bihar Secretariat Service Association (BASA).
Mr Anil Kumar Singh demanded an immediate revocation of the government’s July 17 order that stopped withdrawals by the DDOs for payment of salaries to the employees. The employees could begin an agitation unless the ban is lifted soon, said BASA sources.
The ban has caused financial crises for most government employees in Bihar who have taken loans from banks and other agencies to fund their children’s higher education.