CS completes six months in office, to take course correction measures

The no-nonsense former finance secretary, who is known for strict financial restrictions, has kick-started course correction measures, admit informed secretariat sources.

As a major step in curtailing the illegalities in local bodies, the state government had now passed instructions under which the civic body chairpersons will be entitled to deal mostly with online cash transactions. In other words, the cheque issuing authority of the local body heads are curtailed to bring in transparency and prevent pilferage of government money.

Tamil Nadu’s interest payments are another headache for the state. Further, two government departments - Local Administration and the Health - have drained financial resources over the past three years, opined a senior official, giving a thumbs-up for the Chief Secretary, who is of late contradicting with the rosy proposals pitched in by those with personal interests.

With the Centre not releasing the dues under various heads related to local bodies, GST, disaster management since 2017, the state is heading towards a financial mess. The CS, who is periodically reviewing the status of PF, gratuity and other retirement benefits is also upset with the mounting backlog. For instance, the State Transport Department cleared the retirement arears for about 70 per cent of the staff during last February, but again within a span of 10 months the retirement benefits due for staff have started mounting. The situation with the state local bodies is worse with no internal audits being conducted.

“Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami is issuing DO letters and reminders seeking funds, but no adequate financial support is coming from the Centre. Not even five per cent of the outlay submitted by the state seeking relief funds for cyclone Gaja, Vardah and Ockhi were released by the Centre,” said another official, recalling that Chief Secretary K Shanmugham openly cried foul against the Centre for not releasing adequate funds to execute the relief works in delta region. Minister D Jayakumar on Saturday urged the Centre to release Rs 4,073 crore due under the GST pending for the year 2017-18.

Meanwhile, the ongoing freebie schemes, salaries and pension of the government staff, coupled with mounting loans and credit ratio is playing a spoil-sport for the fire-fighting exercise kickstarted by a few bureaucrats in charge of the state exchequer. The new government which will assume office next year will have a herculean task in maintaining the balance sheet of Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu expects not less than Rs15,000 crore from the Centre under various heads and for the past three years the Centre has not released the grants for local bodies, the official said adding that it’s a tight rope walking for the CS, who has completed six months.