Government seeks Rs 200 crore from RBI to pay its staff

Kolkata: The state government is learnt to have urged top RBI officials to provide it with Rs 200 crore in order to pay advance salaries to its employees at the end of this month. State chief secretary Basudeb Banerjee met with the officials of RBI and three nationalised banks at Nabanna Wednesday.

“We presented before them in details the problems that we are facing in the government sector due to the cash crunch after the demonetisation decision of the Centre. Raghavendra Singh,  the additional secretary in the central agricultural department who is presently in the city to take a stock of the situation was also present in the meeting,”  said a top Nabanna official.

The chief secretary has asked the RBI officials to ensure a good flow of new Rs 500 and Rs 100 notes. The RBI officials said they were trying to supply as much cash as possible to help the state government. The chief secretary also informed the bank officials that tea garden workers, farm labourers and biri workers were also facing immense problems due to cash crunch.

The state government had announced that partial payment of the December salary will be given in cash to the government employees to save them the inconvenience  caused by demonetisation. “The Reserve Bank officials admitted today that they are facing problems in calibrating the ATMs for supplying new notes of Rs 500 but they also assured that the situations will improve within a week or 10 days,” the official added.