SHILLONG, Dec 5: With the festivity of Christmas drawing closer, Opposition Congress has beseeched Power Minister James Sangma to alleviate the economic hardships of the MeECL employees by clearing their outstanding salaries.
“I would like to urge the power minster and the state government to kindly find out in what ways they can get the money to clear the salaries of the employees of the MeECL,” Opposition Chief Whip, PT Sawkmie, said.
Sawkmie also expressed concern over the two month’s salary dues and the protests by the MeECL staff.
Calling it unfortunate, he said this is the first time the employees had to resort to protests.
Sawkmie said he has failed to understand the functioning of the incumbent CMD of MeECL, who had joined recently.
“In a matter of one month, I don’t know what decision he took that the salaries were not released, stating that the revenue collection is less,” he said.
He said that Rs 65 crore was collected for last one month as revenue and instead of clearings the salaries, the whole amount was used to clear the loan. “MeECL having a lot of liabilities and loans to clear does not mean whatever money they have will be used to clear the loan. It is important to think about the salary of the employees,” he added.
Pointing out that the top priority of all the CMDs has been to pay out the salary, Sawkmie said, “I cannot subscribe and he (the incumbent CMD) seems inexperienced”.
Stating that earlier the amount required to clear salaries was Rs 25 crore and now it is informed that it has become Rs 35 crore, Sawkmie questioned the unlooked-for rise, that too in a matter of few months.
He said that Rs 79-80 crore was collected as revenue during the lockdown period and now, after the lockdown, the MeECL had collected Rs 65 crore in the last month.
“Now that the situation is quite normal, economic activities have started and people can clear the bills, I fail to understand how they (MeECL) are collecting less,” he said.