Note ban may delay government salaries, says Manish Sisodia

New Delhi: Deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said the Delhi government may find it difficult to pay salaries of public officials as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation move has hit its tax collection hard.

Mr Sisodia, who is also the state finance minister, said the tax collection can be 50% low this month. According to the government officials, demonetisation has affected property transactions and sale of expensive liquor — the two major revenue generators.

“Tax collection can be 50% low this month as there is no business in Delhi markets. If so, it would b hard to pay salaries of govt employees,” Mr Sisodia said on Twitter. He added that a similar concern was expressed by many state finance ministers at the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council Meet here on Saturday, which was also attended by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley.

Scrapping of large currency notes of 500 and 1,000 denominations has affected the property registration badly, a government official said. The official also said that sale of foreign liquor has dipped due to the ongoing liquidity crunch.

Meanwhile, the Delhi BJP on Saturday staged a protest outside chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence for his opposition to demonetisation and a march in East Delhi in support of currency ban. Lok Sabha member from South Delhi and Delhi BJP general secretary Ramesh Bidhuri led workers from his constituency in a protest demonstration at the residence of the chief minister against  the stand taken by Mr Kejriwal on demonetisation and the stalled development works in hundreds of unauthorised colonies and villages of entire South Delhi.

Addressing the workers, Mr Bidhuri said that within six years of his public life, Mr Kejriwal has become a strong opponent of demonetisation in place of his previous support to note ban and the reason is that during the last three years, his party has collected a substantial amount of cash in form of donations. “The opposition to demonetisation by Mr Kejriwal is clearly due to his personal loss. Otherwise it is beyond comprehension that the person who raised slogan in support of demonetisation in Ramlila Maidan in 2011 is now opposing it,” added Mr Bidhuri.

Mr Bidhuri alleged that the MLAs of Kejriwal’s party from South Delhi area are busy enriching themselves and all the development work has come to a standstill.

“People from Chhattarpur, Badarpur and Bijwasan are struggling for drinking water, the condition of roads is very pathetic and the standard of government schools is falling but the Kejriwal government is not concerned about it,” said the Lok Sabha member from South Delhi.