Shillong, Sep 5: Employees of the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) protesting for the release of 44 months’ worth of salaries owed to them are being manipulated for political purposes, cabinet minister Rakkam Sangma said today.
The GHADC, run – like the state government – by the National People’s Party (NPP), is facing a financial crisis and the Meghalaya cabinet recently gave its nod to a proposal for the state government to take on the burden of paying all employees of the GHADC as well as the ADCs in Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills.
“This is the best solution and they should accept,” Sangma told reporters. “But it is unfortunate that it is politics rather than an issue today.”
The employee protests have seen widespread support from pressure groups, civil society, church leaders and opposition parties like the Trinamool Congress. Although the government’s proposal appears on the surface to be a panacea, apprehension has been expressed in many quarters that such government help would come with too many strings attached and that this would hurt the autonomy of the district councils.
The non-payment of salaries for nearly four years is a genuine issue and the workers are innocent in all this, Sangma said. This is why the state government made its proposal and there is no better solution but some politicians, for their vested interests, have “engineered” the protests and want them to continue.
Sangma appealed to the agitating employees of the GHADC to accept the offer made by the government. “How they survived for 43 months God only knows. Now the government has taken a historic step to revive, streamline and to reform by paying salaries to support them,” he said. “They (the staff) are innocent. They don’t know about the politics being played by somebody from behind.”
