With the aim of bringing down the revenue expenditure of the State government, the ruling cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod to the constitution of the Staff Rationalisation Committee.
The brief for the proposed committee will be to identify unnecessary positions and recommend ways to fill other slots either through contract employment or outsourcing.
An official release issued later stated that the committee “may be formed.”
Prior to the revision of pay for government employees, the allocation for salaries and pensions constituted about 38% of the total revenue expenditure of the State government. For the current year, as per the estimates provided to the State Assembly at the time of the presentation of the budget in March, a sum of about ₹46,332 crore was earmarked towards salaries and ₹20,577 crore towards pensions and other retirement benefits, adding up to ₹66,909 crore in total. The projected revenue expenditure is ₹1,75,293 crore.
At that time, the expenditure that would arise due to the pay revision was not taken into account. After taking the financial impact of the latest move into consideration, the government’s revenue deficit is expected to rise by about ₹7,350 crore. As a result, the revenue deficit will go up from about ₹15,930 crore to ₹23,280 crore.
In respect of city compensatory allowance (CCA), the government decided to double, as a matter of rule, CCA and various other allowances. Medical allowance has been increased from ₹100 to ₹300. Conveyance allowance to the visually challenged, physically disabled and hearing impaired has risen to ₹2,500 from ₹1,000.