Govt to pay salary from Contingency Fund

NEW DELHI, December 22: The government will have to depend on drawals from the Contingency Fund to pay salary to its employees for the mont...

NEW DELHI, December 22: The government will have to depend on drawals from the Contingency Fund to pay salary to its employees for the month of December to be paid on January 1 next.

Sources in the Finance Ministry pointed out that the quantum to be drawn from the Contingency Fund has almost been finalised and the proposal were likely to be placed before the Cabinet on Tuesday. Thereafter, the President would be requested to promulgate an Ordinance enhancing the corpus of the fund and permitting the government to withdraw funds to meet necessary expenditure.

The whole exercise, sources said, had to be completed by the end of December otherwise it would not be possible for the government to pay the salary to its employees for the month of December. It was explained that in usual cases the salary for the first eight months were paid from the budgetary grant, and supplementary demand for grants took care for the salary for the remaining months of the fiscal.

The quantum to be drawn from the contingency fund, sources pointed out would be heavy, mainly because of technical reasons. The total quantum, which the government would withdraw from the Contingency Fund, was likely to be around Rs 10,000 crore.