DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin on Saturday urged the Centre and the State governments to pay salary to their employees in cash as they had to pay for house rent, education fee, provisions and purchase of essential commodities.
In a statement here, he said the failure of the Centre to have contingency measures in place before withdrawing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes had caused enormous hardship to all sections of society and the government employees had already made a request to pay their salary in cash. “The governments should understand the just demand of the employees and pensioners. It needs over Rs.15,000 crore to pay the salary of Central government employees. Besides, the State government and public sector employees are left with no option but to wait in front of the ATMs. But the ATMs are not loaded with new Rs 2000 and Rs 500 notes,” he said. The governments should not punish the employees by asking them to switch over to electronic and cashless transactions. “The governments should pay employees in cash till the crisis is resolved,” he said.