Employees’ salaries may get delayed by 10 days

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, April 6

The Punjab Government may not release salaries to its 3 lakh employees for another 10 days as it has not uploaded data pertaining to their service book records on the Central government website — Electronic Human Resources Management System (eHRMS).

The process, which includes uploading the service records like employee’s name, date of birth, basic qualifications, caste, increments received, leave and promotion records, has been going on for the last five years.

However, the Central Government, which provides funds of various nature to the state government, has tightened the screws from this fiscal year asking the state government to immediately upload details and has stopped grants till the records get on to the website.

Director (Treasury) Dr Abhinav Trikha admitted that there could be some delay. He, however, said those employees whose records had already been uploaded were being paid their dues.

Salaries are normally disbursed between the first and sixth of every month. Sources claim that wages may not be released for another 10-15 days as the uploading processes is not only cumbersome, but also there are not many trained hands to do it.

Following this development, various unions, including the Democratic Mulazim Federation (DMF) and the Sanjha Adhiyapak Morcha, have threatened to hold a protest in front of the Moti Bagh residence of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in Patiala on April 15.

Gurdaspur District Treasury Officer Harbans Singh confirmed that the Treasury Department had put on hold the release of salaries. “Even I am affected as my service book records have not been uploaded,” he said. The condition of Gurdaspur is symptomatic of all the districts across the state.

Amarjit Shastri, state vice-president of the DMF, said bill clerks and Drawing and Disbursing Officers (DDO) of their respective departments were not trained to upload the service book records.

“The uploading process has been going on for the last five years. However, it is agonisingly slow because there is no trained staff to do so. It is admission session this month and employees have no money to pay for their children’s school fees. Moreover, thousands of salaried class will be defaulting on their bank loan payments,” he said.