The Non-Gazetted Employee Association has rejected Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma’s statement that the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) is under financial crunch.
“The statement made by the Chief Minister is incorrect, irrelevant and unfounded, and hard to digest. He should have studied and find out facts and ground realities before making a statement to the media and the public,” president NGEA president Senora Johny Arengh said in a statement issued here.
The Chief Minister during the Outreach and Familiarization programme for Local Bodies held yesterday had stated that fund crunch was one of the challenges that the district councils are facing and cited the example of GHADC.
Stating that during the financial year 2015-2016 the Finance Ministry, Government of India/NITI Aayog sanctioned Rs.100.71 Crores to the GHADC, and amounts of Rs. 48 Crores, 28 Crores, 24 Crores, and 18.20 Crores since October 2015 to 2020, the association questioned, “We want to ask Conrad Sangma what has his party the NPP done with all the above mention money? Who has taken all the money? Has all the money been returned to the finance ministry or NITI Aayog? As a Party chief, he should be able to explain how the above mention amount had been used by his NPP party since October 2015 – 2020 when all this financial assistance was received by GHADC.
The NGEA rejected that the monthly expenditure of GHADC is Rs.10 -12 Crores while revenue generated by GHADC is only Rs. 2 crores. They said that as per the Daily consolidated Head wise collection Report with effect from April 1, 2015, to April 30, 2015, the GHADC generated or collected the revenue of total of Rs 7, 39, 94, 764 crore.
The association said that the amount required for payment of salary for one month is minimum Rs 3.4 crore in old scale and Rs.4.5 to 5 crore in a new scale, and another 3 crore for other expenditure which according to it the monthly expenditure including salary to employees will come to around Rs 7-8 crores, not Rs 10-12 crore.
The press statement also questioned the Chief Minister on the royalty share of a minimum Rs. 45 to 50 crore that the GHADC receives from the State government annually.
