SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Electricity Corporation Limited (MeECL) Joint Action Committee (JAC) has asked the state government to start releasing the payment of the terminal liabilities of more than 3,000 permanent employees amounting to Rs 840 crore as on March 31, 2010.
The chairman of MeECL JAC, TR Pdah, after the meeting, said they have demanded from the state government to initiate payment of the terminal liabilities of the retired employees from April this year even as he cautioned that the government will face more challenges if it further delays the payment.
He added that the government had assured to look after the permanent employees, who were appointed before the corporatisation of the Meghalaya State Electricity Board (MeSEB) on April 01, 2010.
“In the MoU, the state government assured to provide terminal liabilities to all the permanent employees. We have been assured that the service conditions will be more or less equal as it was before the corporatisation of the board,” Pdah said.
He further informed that they have the file in which the then-Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had assured that the government will start to pay the terminal benefits on a monthly basis.
“This is yet to materialise till date,” the MeECL JAC stated.
Informing that the chief minister had not given any assurance, he said, “He (Conrad) will get back to them after convening the meeting of the senior officials of the Finance and other concerned departments.
Replying to a query, he said that the terminal liabilities of the retired employees include pension, gratuity and leave encashment.
Meanwhile, the general secretary, MeECL JAC, Arju Dkhar, said that the MeECL has already spent an amount of Rs 570 crore from its own generated revenue to pay the terminal liabilities of the employees from April 1, 2010 up to March 2019.
