1,000 employees of Pune Cantonment Board not paid for Jan; financial crisis deepens

Pune: Around 1,000 employees of the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) have not received their salaries for Jan, underlining the precarious financial condition that arose due to a shortage of Central govt funds.Confirming the salary delay, Vidyadhar Pawar, chief executive officer of PCB, told TOI they had approached the ministry of defence through the directorate general of defence estates.
"We made the necessary correspondence with the ministry seeking grants to pay salaries to our employees. Our basic monthly requirement is nearly Rs10 crore, which is spent on all essential services, including electricity, water and sanitation. Due to a shortage of funds, we could not make salary payments for Jan," Pawar said.The board employs staff largely in group C and D categories, in addition to contract workers hired for day-to-day work. It received a grant of Rs19.8 crore last year, which officials said was insufficient to sustain operations for long. PCB officials said the financial decline could be traced to the abolition of the local body tax (LBT), a major source of revenue until it was replaced with the goods and services tax (GST). "We have for the last several years been demanding in vain our share of GST from both state and Central govts," an official said.There are no independent source of revenue generation left for the board, another official said, adding, "We are entirely dependent on grants from the ministry of defence."Employees said they get their salary on the last day or first day of the month. "However, this time, there was no communication about it. We have our monthly expenses, and this delay affects our planning badly," an employee, who did not wish to be named, said.A senior PCB official said the contrast with the past is stark. "When LBT was in place, the board had fixed deposits worth over Rs100 crore. Roads were well maintained, and civic services were of high quality. Over the past 10 years, those reserves have been exhausted. Today, the board is in an extremely sad state," the official said, adding receiving a regular GST share could restore financial stability.