Govt employee union Nabaparjay requests state to pay November’s salaries in cash

The West Bengal Government Employees Union (Nabaparjay) submitted a memorandum to the Chief Secretary Basudeb Banerjee with a request for payment of salary of the state government employees in cash for the month of November.

Members of the association have placed the demand before the state government after assessing that withdrawing money from banks to run their families has become an impossible task due to the “demonetisation drive of the Central government”.

The letter stated: “The state government employees are naturally not spared by this arbitrary, unilateral step of the Central government. The banks do not have enough cash to disburse and meet the demand of people. Banks are handing out Rs 2,000 notes in exchange of demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. In absence of new notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000, the employees and people in general are facing severe problems in buying essential commodities. The lower denomination notes have simply vanished from the market and it’s adding to the woe”.

The association has also clearly stated the problem that they are apprehending of facing in the beginning of the next month.

They stated that the state government employees who get above Rs 24,000 salary per month would not be able to withdraw the total amount at a time as the Centre’s decision of capping the withdrawal limit.

Thus, the association wrote to the Chief Secretary on Thursday requesting to disburse salary for the month of November in cash so that the employees do not get harassed by standing in long queues outside the banks.

They have also raised a question mark in their letter whether the drive of the central government “will effectively neutralise” the problem of black money.

Though any reply in this regard is yet to come from the state government, it may be mentioned that the Bengal government had taken several steps to help its employees when they were facing inconvenience due to shortage of lower denomination notes in the market.

The state finance department had set up a centre in Nabanna from where the state government employees were allowed to exchange Rs 1,500.