Lift curbs on withdrawals, urges Thomas Isaac

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Finance minister Thomas Isaac urged the Centre to relax limits on withdrawal of money from banks to enable disbursal of salaries and pensions. In a letter sent to Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday, Dr Isaac urged that government employees should be allowed to withdraw an amount not exceeding their salary from banks and treasuries during the first 10 days of the coming month. The Centre may also direct the Reserve Bank of India to ensure sufficient imprest funds, as requisitioned by the director of treasuries for meeting requirements of paying salaries and pensions, Dr Issac has urged in the letter.

Talking to reporters here, Dr Isaac also said that an English translation of the substantive motion passed by the Assembly would be sent to the Centre as there were reports that the Centre was under a wrong impression that the motion was in violation of the Constitution. He also strongly criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for declining a request for meeting by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan led delegation. Dr Issac said that about 5.5 lakh employees and pensioners draw salaries and pensions through banks, 4.5 lakh through Treasury accounts and the rest around 50,000 in cash.

Many of them settle the previous month's credits during the first couple of weeks of every month and hence there used to be considerable withdrawal of funds during the initial days of every month. The finance minister said that flow of NRK funds to the state had come to a standstill owing to uncertainties caused by demonetisation and the state's growth rate during the current quarter may fall to four per cent.

Action plan

The finance minister said that the government was finalising an action plan to tackle the difficulties faced by public owing the crisis in the cooperative sector. As per the plan, establishments in government and cooperative sector will accept cheques of cooperative banks. The scheme would be extended to private establishments, subject to their willingness, he said. "At any cost the government would resist the centre's moves to scuttle the cooperative banking sector," Dr Isaac said.