Pinarayi defends staff salary deferment

04/05/2020, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Pinarayi Vijayan

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday attacked Congress-led service organisations for criticising the government’s decision to defer the remittance of 30 days’ salary over five months to steady the State’s finances.

In his weekly television programme, Nam Munnottu, Mr. Vijayan said teachers who had burnt the government order had become objects of public ridicule. The students of their schools had set an example for them by contributing their mite to the Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF).

On the teachers who torched the order, he said, “Their perverse mindset will never change.”

He said the COVID-19 lockdown had choked the government’s conventional revenue streams. Kerala had protected its employees from arbitrary wage and dearness allowance cuts resorted to by the Central government. The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party had done the same in the States ruled by them.

Mr. Vijayan defended his action to hire highly paid lawyers to argue for the government and said his special advisers bore minimal cost to the public exchequer.

He also justified the government’s decision to hire a helicopter for a “high monthly rental” by stating that the State would deploy it during natural disasters.

Kerala Congress chief Mullappally Ramachandran said the Chief Minister’s sense of insecurity had caused him to splurge on helicopters, bulletproof vehicles and expensive escort cars.