Thursday, December 20, 2012

Salary hike robs state's exchequer

Aizawl, Dec 20 (UNI) Even though Mizoram has not been doing bad in tax collection during the last ten years,the hike in salaries of government employees has eaten up major portion of the state's revenues.

State finance minister H Liansailova,in his written reply to a question in the one-day Assembly winter session on December 11, said that the Mizoram Revision of Pay 2010 robbed the state's exchequer of Rs 377.86 crore from January to July 2010.With another Rs 159.10 crore during August 2010 to March 2011,Mizoram spent an additional amount of Rs 536.96 crore for salaries,he said.

On the other hand,the 13th Finance Commission has not made even an additional rupee while making fund allocation to the state.Saying that similar problem was faced by a number of states,Liansailova blamed it on the 13th FC's "failure to understand the states' problems." He hoped that the problem would be gone under the 14th Finance Commission.