Hyderabad, January 24: In a major development, the state government today is learnt to have issued oral instructions to all the treasuries to stall all payments except salaries and input subsidy to farmers in view of shortage of funds in the exchequer.
The decision came in the wake of the Finance department authorities expressing concern over declining revenue receipts and spiralling expenditure during the current financial year during a series of meetings held in the past few days.
According to sources, the state government is in a peculiar situation where it cannot release funds for both the salaries and the government schemes. It is learnt that the government would have to stop payment of part of the salaries in case it has to release funds for various government schemes, particularly the prestigious Racchabanda programme scheduled to be launched by chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy on January 24.
Sources said that though orders were issued for the release of `1,200 crore towards the Racchabanda programme, there are no funds in the treasury for the amounts to be released to the departments concerned.
The officials admitted that salaries to contract employees had been kept pending for the past two months due to lack of revenue receipts.
Even contract employees in the state Secretariat, including those working in the Peshis of Ministers, are yet to receive salaries for December.
“The salaries alone require `2,700 crore every month. Currently, the revenue receipts can hardly meet the requirement for salaries. We can release funds for only a few requirements under emergency circumstances.
The situation is unlikely to improve over the next few months,” sources said.
However, officials claimed that such oral instructions were nothing new and they were frequently issued to streamline fund flow as and when required. They said that all payments would be made shortly.
–Agencies