Bihar deputy CM's salary delayed

It is not just the commoners whose salaries are delayed. Believe it or not, but the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar along with some of his cabinet colleagues found it out the hard way when they failed to receive their February salaries by mid-March.

Around March 14, deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi, who is also the finance minister of Bihar, inquired if his salary was credited after he received complaints that some minister and their staff members had not received their February salaries.

"On inquiry, it was found that a clerk in the cabinet secretariat department had not released the salary as some papers relating to TDS deduction had not been submitted for processing. Usually these documents are required to be submitted in March," a close aide of Modi told DNA.

He said, "When the deputy CM sought to clarify the delay from the assistant clerk Arjun Prasad, he said he will release the salaries without the TDS papers. Modi ji asked if the salary could be released without the TDS papers, then why had it been withheld in the first place." He added that there were other complaints against the said clerk for seeking gratification to release salary.

Following the incident, Modi has written to state cabinet secretariat department principal secretary to initiate departmental proceedings against the erring clerk. "The deputy CM has asked the department and its officials to work as per the rules of the state government and not according to their whims and fancies," he said.

The February salaries of Modi and his colleagues were released to the treasury on March 16, but the source said it is not clear if the bank has credited into their accounts yet.

The source said Modi is on a spree to find such "system loopholes and plug all governance related issues which were present in the previous Mahagathbandhan government."