More State government employees will now get their salaries through the newly created Employee Treasury Savings Bank (ETSB) accounts which aim at encouraging them to hold back a portion of their salaries at least for a couple of weeks in the treasury and thus earn something extra as interest every month.
Most employees will get their July salary credited to the ETSB account on August 1 with the completion of the second phase of the ETSB. The facility will be available for employees in about 100 departments.
Treasury Department officials say the salary credited to the ETSB account can be easily moved to the employee’s bank account by giving a standing instruction.
With the activation of account on the Treasury Savings Bank portal, they will be able to conduct more online transactions.
“Now, there are 1.13 lakh ETSB accounts covering 48 departments. In the second phase, the centralised processing of an almost equal number of accounts is being completed,” says Kozhikode District Treasury Officer K. Salil.
ATM cards would be offered to the employees soon. This is in addition to withdrawal via cheques and online transaction.
An interest of 6% is offered to employees holding a particular percentage of their salary in their accounts for at least 15 days — from 4th to 18th every month. Those holding their full salary during the lock-in period would get higher interest rate.
In the first phase, most Treasury staff have been getting their salaries credited to the ETSB on an experimental basis. Of the 3,800 employees in the department, about 3,500 employees have retained at least 10% of their salary in the past few months.
The only limitation now is the restrictions imposed on online purchases and crediting money from other accounts.
Meanwhile, leaders of the NGO Association say the government is yet to achieve the target of initiative as only 10% of the account holders maintain a particular balance in their accounts for interest benefits.
They say the whole effort will be a waste if the government does not get the expected fund during the lock-in period.