Having wriggled out of the political crisis earlier this year, the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh is evidently fumbling on the financial matters now.
Facing allegations of not being able to manage the salaries of its employees last month, when salaries of all the employees were credited on the 5th instead of the 1st, breaking away from the all-time rule, in the BJP campaign in Haryana and J&K the government credited salaries on 1st in October month. The government pensioners, whose numbers are increasing, got their pension on the 10th of September and this month they will get it on the 9th.
Even though Chief Minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu called the decision to delay the salaries last month a‘ financial discipline’ measure to save interest in the public exchequer, the step not only created insecurity among the government employees and pensioners in HP, it also reflected the Congress government in bad light in the entire country.
The government has to spend Rs 1200 crore on salaries of employees and Rs 800 crore on pensions every month and this amount is going to increase substantially in the next few years.
The employees generally feel that the whole financial discipline is being messed up in the name of ‘prudence’, which is being done without any austerity measures on the part of the government.
Salaries apart, the state government’s notification on the ‘toilet tax’ and then ‘roll back’ recently has also not gone down well with the people in general, going by the outburst on social media.
The issue came to light when Union Health Minister, JP Nadda, who is currently on tour to the home state, alleged at a rally in Bilaspur that the Sukhu government’s wisdom has become ‘corrupt’. Nadda said the Congress government has no right to stay in power in Himachal as it has come to the level of imposing a ‘toilet tax’.
The Chief Minister denied it and reverted that the BJP had fabricated the toilet tax issue in the light of elections in Haryana. He said the issue was being politicised although it was far from reality.
As per official records, however, the Jal Shakti department in Himachal Pradesh had come out with a notification regarding the imposition of a Rs 25 tax per sewerage seat in urban areas and a tax of Rs 100 on water in rural areas on September 21, 2024. The notification had to be withdrawn on the intervention of Deputy Chief Minister, Mukesh Agnihotri.
It is pertinent to mention that the government already charges 30 per cent of the total water bill as sewerage charges.
All such measures just indicate the Congress government’s struggle to meet the financial liabilities in Himachal Pradesh with limited resources and virtually no resource mobilization. At this moment, many people are already questioning the prudence of the government to first announce freebies in polls in the state reeling under debt of Rs 80,000 crore, then take a U-turn and burden people with taxes, delayed salaries and pensions, all with no effort to plug the gaps in financial behaviour and efforts to mobilise resources like ‘water cess’ getting hurdled in corridors of court.
“The financial state of Himachal Pradesh is a cause of concern now. Every government will face such a situation if ways are not devised to reduce expenditure and increase revenues by mobilizing resources in the long run. The government can try hands on the hydropower sector and tourism, but with renewed vision,” said KR Bharti, a retired IAS officer, with experience of handling finance departments in the government earlier.
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