SHILLONG: District Council Affairs Minister James Sangma said on Thursday that the state government does not provide funds to the district councils for payment of salaries of MDCs and employees and also for other administrative and establishment expenditure.
In reply to the issue of GHADC employees’ pending salary raised by Congress member PT Sawkmie, James informed the Assembly that the district councils being autonomous bodies under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution have their own sources of revenue as provided under the various paragraphs of the Sixth Schedule.
“Therefore, the state government does not provide funds to the councils for payment of salaries and other expenditure,” he said.
James admitted that the district councils have narrow resource base with their major source of revenue being share of the royalty collected by the state government on major and minor minerals extracted from within the areas under their respective jurisdictions. The sharing ratio between the state and the district councils after deduction of the cost of collection is 75:25 in respect of coal and 40:60 in respect of other minerals.
Royalty on minerals constitutes a major source of income of the district councils in Meghalaya.
The councils are also getting their share of taxes on motor vehicles collected by the state government under the Meghalaya Motor Vehicle Taxation Act. After deducting the cost of collection, the GHADC and JHADC get 100 per cent of the taxes collected and the KHADC gets only 60 per cent of the net collection.
“The revenue receipts of the district councils, including fees for the various services and professional tax, have been sufficient to meet the administrative expenditure of the councils,” James said.
He said subject to availability of funds, each year the District Council Affairs Department is helping them by extending grant-in-aid for enforcement of the Trading by Non-Tribal Regulation.
The councils also get assistance from the Revenue Department for land reforms and land records work.
“While the KHADC and the JHADC have been able to pay the salary of the employees in spite of the decrease in the royalty collection after the ban on rat-hole mining, the acute financial problem of the GHADC had been there even before that,” James said.
The state government had extended one-time special assistance of Rs 5 crore to GHADC for payment of salaries in 2010-2011 and Rs 2.54 crore was sanctioned in 2013-2014 for pension liability of former MDCs.
The large number of employees in the GHADC compared to the other two district councils is one of the reasons for its inability to clear the monthly salary of its employees leading to huge arrear.
The number of employees in the three district councils in the state is KHADC (524), GHADC (2,149) and JHADC (1,417).
The government releases the share of royalty on major and minor minerals and motor vehicle taxes to GHADC in time. “In fact mining and geology department has been releasing the share of royalty to the GHADC in excess of the amount due to them from time to time,” James said.
As on April 1 this year, the excess amount of royalty share paid to the GHADC was Rs 22,63,06,393. Another Rs 15 crore was paid to the GHADC in May on account of share of royalty on major minerals and with this, the excess amount paid may be more.
The minister said during September 2015, a proposal for financial assistance of Rs 8,78,71,831 has been received from the GHADC but the government did not consider the request since an excess amount of Rs 16,31,66,027 has already been paid even during 2015-2016.
