Salary cut for chief minister, MLAs, government employees of this state - Here is why

As Covid-19 pandemic is hitting economies badly, the Rajasthan government has decided to deduct a part of the salary of the Chief Minister, state ministers, MLAs, All India State Service Officers and other state employees every month. The decision was taken in a cabinet meeting held on Wednesday.

Accordingly, every month, seven days salary of the Chief Minister, cabinet ministers and the ministers of state will be deducted. A day's salary will be deducted from the MLAs emoluments every month. Apart from this, two days' pay will be deducted every month from the gross salary of the officers of All India and State Service, and one day from the gross salary of the subordinate service officials and other state employees.

This money will be deposited in the Chief Minister's Assistance Fund (Covid Assistance). This deduction will be made from September 2020 and the amount will be used to help people affected by the Covid-19 epidemic.

The deduction, however, is not applicable to the judges and officers and personnel of the Rajasthan High Court and subordinate courts, medical and health services, all officers and personnel of the Department of Medical Education, police constables and all employees of the state government working in the pay scale of level one to four.

Meanwhile, India's COVID-19 tally raced past the 38-lakh mark on Thursday with the sharpest single-day spike of 83,883 fresh cases, while the number of recoveries surged to 29,70,492, pushing the recovery rate to over 77 per cent, Union health ministry data showed. The total number of coronavirus cases in the country mounted to 38,53,406, while the death toll climbed to 67,376 as 1,043 people succumbed to the disease in a span of 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

The national COVID-19 recovery rate has risen to 77.09 per cent and the case fatality rate due to the infection has further declined to 1.75 per cent. There are 8,15,538 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country which comprise 21.16 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated.

India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7 and went past 30 lakh on August 23.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, a cumulative total of 4,55,09,380 samples have been tested up to September 2 with 11,72,179 samples being tested on Wednesday -- the highest in a day so far.