How much is too much? Govt. spent 1093 cr. on pension beneficiaries in 2016-17

Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, May 23 (EMN):The government of Nagaland spent a staggering INR 1093 cr. from the State Exchequer as pension for the year 2016-17, according to documents made available to Eastern Mirror through Right to Information (RTI).

According to documents received from the office of the principal accountant general (accounts and entitlement), a grand total INR 1093, 47, 17,291 was spent on pensioners by the state government from April 2016 to March 2017. It was to be credited with INR 935, 34, 52, 259 more from April 2017 to December 2017.

Stated amount was released to 60900 pensioners, the total pension beneficiaries, issued by the establishment till December 2017.

At the same time, according to information from the directorate of Treasuries and Accounts in Kohima, it was learnt that INR 935, 34, 52, 259 was disbursed to 23588 pensioners—both living and family excluding those drawing pension from banks—through various treasury and sub-treasury offices established across different districts of the state for the year 2106-17.

The chief minister of Nagaland, Neiphui Rio, had presented an estimated deficit budget of INR 1630.67 cr. for the fiscal year 2018-19 during the first session of the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly without proposing any new tax. This gives the impression that the tag of Nagaland as the ’neediest state’ from among 29 states and seven union territories in the Indian union will remain unchallenged for some time.

Delving into the past scenario, Nagaland received the highest financial support from the centre in 2015-16, receiving the “neediest state” tag from among said states and union territories.

According to a Reserve Bank of India publication, Nagaland received 92.5% of its financial resources from the centre during 2015-16. This means that the government of Nagaland invested only 7.5% of its total expenditure from own coffers.

Leaving aside pensioners, according to official sources, it will be pertinent to highlight that there were 1, 25,309 government employees (out of 19, 80,602 forming Nagaland’s population) drawing a salary of INR 3050.29 cr. annually as of March 31 2014.

According to the state budget estimates for 2018-19, INR 3567.36 cr. has been earmarked under Central Sponsored Scheme. Out of it, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme alone  has an outlay of INR 1159.09 cr. leaving only INR 580 cr. available for developmental activities in the State Plan.

In assessing the current situation, the state’s overall development is staring at another blank space: the outgo on non-developmental components hits almost 56% of the total budget which includes both salary and pension and 12% more for loan repayments. The state is left with only meagre resources for other developmental activities in the State Plan.

This vicious cycle of ‘unavoidable social dependence’ on the government by the state’s citizens will continue to plague Nagaland unless some sensible and result-oriented steps are taken by the policy makers.

And for a start, to improve this sordid predicament, the government can start by filtering out excess and unproductive government employees from various departments and focus on introducing vocational and technical education right from the elementary level.