Why Kerala Government's second salary challenge call raises eyebrows

In order to tide over the worsening financial crisis caused by COVID-19, the CPM-led left-front government in Kerala has come up with yet another salary challenge call, as it did after the 2018 floods. It has urged Kerala government employees to contribute one month salary to the Chief Minister's distress relief fund.

While only around 60 per cent of the employees took up the challenge in 2018, this time the salary challenge call seems to have raised more eyebrows. The key reasons could be the alleged misappropriation of funds, that too involving some CPM cadres and the lack of any austerity measures from the political leadership, some instances being foreign trips by jumbo delegations led by the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his cabinet and bureaucrat colleagues and their family members and creating more Cabinet rank posts for appeasements.

Even while calling for the second salary challenge, the Kerala Government shows no signs of tightening its belt as Rs 1.7 crore was released just the other day for a much-opposed chopper service to be hired for multiple services like security operations to VIP movement.

While the Kerala Government was targeting to collect over Rs 2,000 crore from the 2018 salary challenge, the amount so far collected on this account was only close to Rs 1230 crore.

Hardly one month ago, a couple of CPM workers in Kochi were held by the Kerala Crime Branch for siphoning off Rs 15 lakh meant for flood relief. The opposition parties alleged that it could only be the tip of the iceberg. Moreover, there were reports of hundreds of families still awaiting due compensation after the 2018 floods.

Even after the 2018 floods, there was no dearth in foreign trips by the CM and ministers, even in the name of looking for ideas and receiving support for rebuilding the flood-ravaged state and which are still on paper. Five new posts with cabinet ranks were formed, even three of which after the floods - former MP A Sampath as a Kerala Government representative in Delhi, CPI MLA K Rajan as Chief Whip and elevating post of Advocate General C P Sudhakara Prasad. Former Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and former minister R Balakrishna Pillai are the others enjoying cabinet rank for political appeasements.

While Kerala opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala of the Congress demanded the Government to go ahead with salary challenge call only after taking the employees into confidence, BJP State President K Surendran said that people had lost confidence in contributing relief fund to the government owing to misappropriation and extravaganza.