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Valley slides into financial quicksand; Farooq in talks with Centre to find a way out

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

The latest assertions by the state chief minister Dr Farooq Abdullah indicate that the financial troubles for Jammu and Kashmir could be a long-drawn affair.

After his latest meeting with Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Planning Commission members, Dr Abdullah has stated that he is ''being forced to take extreme steps to meet the financial crunch which looks like assuming the proportions of a crisis.''

The chief minister has already announced a ban on recruitment for one year. He is also contemplating bringing down the retirement age from 58 years to 55 years.

Earlier reports had said that the state might follow the Centre in enhancing the retirement age to 60 as has been done in case of Central services and public sector banks.

The announcement that the government is thinking in terms of reducing the retirement age got the chief minister a lot of flak from the government employees.

The latter say that proposing retirements would bring in additional pressure on the state exchequer since terminal benefits amounting to billions of rupees shall have to be paid to the retiring employees well ahead of time.

Critics of the state government also accuse Dr Abdullah and his ministerial colleagues of employing over 30,000 "favourites" at various levels in the state when the government is outwardly crying wolf.

One of the main electoral planks of the ruling National Conference party has been the promise to provide jobs to the unemployed youth besides winning the state a fair quantum of political and financial autonomy.

Two years after being swept to power, the NC is yet to achieve the much-publicised autonomy. The so-called Autonomy Committee has yet to submit its final report on the delicate issue of state-Centre relations.

Most of the developmental works in the state have also been put on hold. Payments to contractors for completed works are yet to be made.

Financial experts close to the chief minister indicate that the top priority of the state government at the moment is to afford the growing wage bills of the government employees.

The wage bills of the employees are growing enormously because of the chief minister's decision to implement the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission. Recently, the additional instalments of dearness allowance had to be credited to the provident fund accounts of employees as there was little cash in treasuries across the state.

UNI

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Jammu and Kashmir