Punjab inherited Rs 14,191 crore pay arrears; ₹6,000 crore paid

The government of Punjab, a state in India, pays salaries to people who work for it, like teachers and office workers.

A report about how much these workers should be paid was made in 2016, but the government did not use it until July 2021.

Because of that delay, workers did not get an extra payment called dearness allowance for more than five years.

Workers went to court, and the court said the government should make a plan to pay them.

The state government says the total bill for this missed money is about Rs 14,191 crore, which is a huge amount.

The government says it has already paid more than Rs 6,000 crore of that bill.

A minister named Harpal Singh Cheema says older governments caused this problem and left the bill behind.

He says the report was made by one old government and that another old government did not pay anything toward the money.

The court recently made another decision about the dearness allowance, and the state government is thinking about what to do next.

The government says Punjab already pays its workers very well, so it wants to check if it must follow the court's rule.