THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reiterated that steps will be taken to give pension to retired employees of KSRTC regularly. The government is for paying all dues to pensioners in a time-bound manner, he told the Assembly during question hour.The CM said that it was not practical to give pension after making the KSRTC profitable. This could lead to many issues. The government is for providing pension without any arrears to employees, he said.
Stating that the government will take all measures to protect the KSRTC, he said that regular pension could be assured to the employees once the KSRTC revival package comes up.
CM hints at bus fare hike
T’Puram : Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Thursday indicated in the Assembly on increasing bus fare in the coming days. Stating that fuel price hike has affected the motor vehicle sector, he said vehicle owners had demanded a hike in fare. The private bus owners had withdrawn from the strike on Wednesday only after the Ramachandran Commission assured them to look into the issue, he said while replying to a question. The Ramachandran Commission had assured that necessary action will be taken after conducting a study.
‘Steps taken to address construction material shortage’
T’Puram: The government has taken steps to ensure adequate availability of construction material in the wake of huge rise in its price, Industries Minister A C Moideen informed the Assembly on Thursday. He was replying to a calling attention motion by V D Satheesan of the Congress who said huge difficulties are being faced in the construction sector and implementation of housing schemes due to hike in price of construction materials. The Industries Minister said the environment clearance process will be simplified and hastened. The distance of small-scale quarries from water bodies has been reduced to 50 metres.
Govt unable to meet key fiscal targets
T’Puram: The state government failed to meet important fiscal targets, according to the annual accounts for the 2016-17 fiscal, which was tabled in the Assembly on Thursday. While the target was to reduce revenue deficit to 1.98 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), the revenue deficit as per the accounts was 2.36 per cent of GSDP at Rs 15,484.59 crore. The state also failed to meet the target of reducing fiscal deficit at a level not exceeding 3.51 per cent of the GSDP. Instead, the fiscal deficit rose to 4.04 per cent at Rs 26,448.35 crore. The target to contain state’s total debt at 26.82 per cent was also not met as the total debt climbed to 28.96 per cent at Rs 1,89,768.55 crore. The accounts showed that interest payments accounted to 13.30 per cent of the total revenue expenditure of the state. Payment of pension and other retirement benefits constituted 16.77 per cent of the revenue expenditure.