Software glitch delays salary of Punjab staff

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 4

The Punjab Government has taken in-principle decision to pay full salary to its staff, but around 3 lakh employees could not be paid salary for April due to a software glitch. The state’s monthly salary and pension bill is around Rs 3,000 crore.

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) operates the new Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) which is used for approval and disbursal of salary, pensions, bills and other payments. The state contract with a private IT firm had ended in March.

Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, however, said, “We are not deferring salaries and pensions in view of the fiscal crisis. At present, the NIC is operating our IFMS to disburse salary which is connected to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Even the RBI has changed its vendor for IFMS. It’s a new system that’s why we are going slow until we have proper integration. At present, we are making payment of about Rs 150-Rs 200 crore every day. We can disburse Rs 3,000 crore in a day, but we don’t want the system to crash.”

“Last month also, the salary was transferred on April 15, 16 and 20. It’s getting delayed just because of a technical glitch, ” he added.