TURA, Sep 18: Following the emergence of posters outside Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) headquarters in Tura calling for strike from Monday, the Council authorities have maintained that the GHADC will continue to function as usual.
“It has come to the notice of the authorities of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council, Tura, that certain news items/articles pertaining to agitation by some employees starting from 20th September (Monday) have been circulating in the social/print media. In this regard, this is to inform the general public that the GHADC office shall remain open and shall function as on normal days,” a notice by the Joint Secretary mentioned on Saturday.
The statement comes after multiple posters surfaced outside the GHADC headquarters in Tura in the name of Non-Gazetted Employees Association (NGEA), calling for release of their pending salaries under the new pay scale and reinstatement of their leaders.
The employees want the GHADC to pay them their salaries under the 5th pay scale as assured by the previous EC led by Dipul Marak. However, the decision was, at that time, struck down and kept in abeyance in the light of the financial crisis in the Council.
Close to three months of strike, the agitating GHADC staff had to eventually relent and accept the old pay scale in view of the fund crunch in Council.
While the new NPP-led EC headed by Benedic Marak as CEM did assure the striking employees then that salaries will be doled out in the revised scale as and when sufficient funds are available, the latest decision to pay four months of pending dues under the old scale has ruffled the GHADC staff’s feathers, prompting them to threaten a fresh protest.
According to Deputy CEM Nikman Ch Marak on Saturday, the GHADC is to get Rs 20 crore from the state government as part of its share of royalty from transport and forest taxes.
The Deputy CEM has clarified that under the old scale, a sum of Rs four crore is required to pay one month’s salary of the Council staff. As such, four months of dues, totalling Rs 16 crore, will be paid to the employees while the remaining Rs four crore would be held back to pay those employees who have resigned, retired, et al.
Reinstatement demand
But the Council employees are not settling for just the revised pay scale. They are demanding the reinstatement of their colleagues who have been axed from service for spearheading the recent agitation.
The president of the NGEA, Senora Johny Arengh, who was an LDA in the Taxation Branch of the GHADC, was suspended for insubordination and subsequently terminated from service after his show-cause reply was found to be “challenging and counter-allegation in nature”.
“We want the immediate reinstatement of all our NGEA leaders,” demand the association members through their posters.
However, the Council authorities are nonchalant on this demand as they cite the indiscipline of the leaders of the NGEA and the breakdown of law and order during their protests, three months ago.
“There is already a committee looking into all these aspects and they will decide the steps to be taken,” claims CEM Benedic Marak.
