TURA, May 31: Barely three days after Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced advance release of royalty share from minor minerals to the GHADC to help tide over its financial crisis relating to salary disbursement after a high-level meeting between the state finance officials and Council CEM Benedic Marak in Shillong, the situation has failed to get resolved as the striking employees have rejected all overtures until they get paid one year of their salary dues.
The new Executive Committee of the GHADC, led by Benedic Marak as CEM, has been urging the striking employees to return to work with an assurance to immediately clear five months of their previous dues based on the current availability of funds within the autonomous body.
Having been unpaid for 34 long months, the protesting staff, under the banner of Non-Gazetted Employees Association (NGEA), maintain that nothing short of one year of their dues have to be cleared if at all the authorities wish to see the work force back on their jobs in the district council. “We are only demanding the one time release of one year’s salary as per the revised scale which has been approved by the previous EC. But despite our strong protest, the new EC is forcing the employees to accept the salaries in the old scale. We are shocked and highly disappointed with the CEM and the CM,” the NGEA joint secretary, Flaming B Marak, announced in a communiqué.
“We are also human and we have families. People have died not receiving their dues,” alleged the NGEA as it put the onus on the state government and the district council to fulfill the assurance given by the previous GHADC Executive Committee in 2018 to pay salaries under the new 5th pay commission rules.
However, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma only last Saturday reiterated that the district council is a completely autonomous entity having its own powers and resources and the state can only extend a helping hand.
On Monday, a day after the West Garo Hills district administration imposed Section 144 CrPC prohibiting the employees from gathering en masse outside the Council premises, following unruly scenes and chaos the previous week, dozens of striking employees set up base at the Hawakhana tri-junction road in Tura, a couple of hundred meters from the GHADC headquarters, to register their protest.
Braving inclement weather, the striking staff announced that they would no longer accept any further offer of talks by the CEM and his EC until their demand gets fulfilled. They reiterated that only release of one entire year of dues under the new pay scale will compel them to head back to work.
Condemning the MDA Government and the Deputy Commissioner for imposing Section 144 CrPC prohibiting all kinds of gathering in the GHADC premises, the NGEA accused them of suppressing their voices and their right to demand for payment of salaries. It added that come what may, it would not falter from its stand and continue the demand until it is fulfilled.
The district administration clamped the curbs after the unsavoury events of last week when hordes of angry striking employees blocked vehicles of the CEM and officials coming out of the Council office on the unsubstantiated claims that files were being taken out.
It led to one accounts official who was hounded out by the protestors to flee the scene on his vehicle leading to a woman protester sustaining minor injuries while allegedly attempting to stop his vehicle.
