Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has decided to defer the payment of the second instalment of the 11th pay revision arrears to government employees, teachers and university employees until further orders. The decision to credit the second instalment of the pay revision arrears of government employees with their PFs has been temporarily put on hold by the government owing to acute financial stress. A notice in this regard has been issued by the Financial Department.

The pay revision arrears of government employees and teachers will amount to Rs 14,000 crores. The government had earlier announced that it would be crediting the arrears to the PF accounts of the employees, in a total of four instalments (25 pc per transaction). The arrears for the time period between July 2019-July 2021 was supposed to be cleared in this manner.

As per the above decision, the first instalment of the pay revision arrears was supposed to be released by April 2023, the deadline for the second instalment was October 1 this year. The state government had assured to release the third and fourth instalments of the arrears next year. But neither the first nor the second instalments of the arrears have been released so far. In an order issued by Rabindra Agarwal, the Principal Secretary of the Financial Department, it was mentioned that the merger of the first instalment of the 11th pay revision arrears with PF accounts of government employees will be put on hold owing to the acute financial crisis in which the state finds itself in.    

Deferring the second instalment is expected to help the government avoid a financial burden amounting to Rs 3,000 crores for the time being. Government sources opine that the decision to delay the instalment of pay revision arrears with provident funds was taken after much deliberation. Otherwise, it would have adversely affected the borrowing limit of the state. It should be noted that if pay revision arrears are merged with PFs, then it shall reflect on the public account, hence, forcing the government to take such a decision. The move is expected to help the state wade through the financial crisis to an extent.