Punjab pays highest salary; Oppn misleading people: Cheema

Chandigarh: Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Thursday claimed the state pays the highest salaries to government employees in the country and accused the opposition of misleading people over pending dearness allowance and pension dues.

His remarks came days after the Punjab government moved the Supreme Court against a High Court order directing it to release pending DA and dearness relief dues of around Rs 14,191 crore within a fortnight.

Government employees had also staged a statewide strike on August 27 over demands including pending DA. Cheema claimed Punjab employees receive higher basic pay plus DA than employees in Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He also claimed Gujarat government employees receive 28 per cent less than their Punjab counterparts.

According to Cheema, salaries and pensions consume 51 per cent of Punjab’s total revenue, compared with an average of 38 per cent in other states.

He said the AAP government had increased DA from 28 per cent when it took office to 34 per cent in October 2022, 38 per cent in December 2023 and 42 per cent in 2024.

Cheema blamed previous SAD-BJP and Congress governments for leaving over Rs 14,000 crore in arrears between 2016 and 2021.

He said the current government had cleared more than Rs 4,500 crore under a liquidation plan.

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The Hans India