Agartala, Dec. 26: A serious crisis is looming over Tripura’s finances as non-plan expenditure spirals out of control.

The finance department is finding it increasingly difficult to pay salaries to employees of government undertakings, corporations and autonomous bodies.

Even bills submitted by MLAs under the heads of tour allowance and dearness allowance have not been paid.

Stipends payable to students belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and small amounts of assistance to tribals by the tribal welfare department have been withheld.

Though there is no immediate threat of non-payment of salaries to regular employees of the state government, the impending crisis has given the lie to the ruling Left Front’s rhetoric on “sound financial management”.

Already the state has drawn an advance of Rs 22 crore at a rate of six per cent interest from the “ways and means” deposit with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). But the slide is continuing.

Despite strident demands even from pro-CPM employees’ unions, the state government has failed to release any instalment of the outstanding 21 per cent of dearness allowance.

Highly-placed sources in the finance department said the crisis stems from the fact that an amount of Rs 115 crore as revenue gap grant was not received last year from the 11th Finance Commission under the non-plan head.

Despite assurances from the Union finance ministry, the money is yet to be released.

As a result, the initial budgetary deficit of Rs 68 crore in the current year has already crossed Rs 100 crore.

In November, the Union finance ministry had released Rs 90 crore but the deficit could not be covered owing to rising non-plan expenditure.