The state cabinet has revised the minimum wage rates upwards at its meeting held today.
The cabinet held its meeting in Sohra, part of the government’s desire to hold them in different parts of Meghalaya on a periodic basis.
The revised minimum wage rates see unskilled workers to get Rs 525 per day at a minimum (up from Rs 419), Rs 565 (up from Rs 474) for semi-skilled workers, Rs 605 (up from Rs 530) for skilled workers and Rs 654 (up from Rs 586) for highly skilled workers.
The cabinet has also amended the Meghalaya Factories Rules 1980. This was done in line with the central government’s ‘ease of doing business’ provisions, where certain licences that had to be renewed on an annual basis will now be issued for 10 years.
The cabinet has also included a provision to allow women staff to work the night shift at their places of work, again, based on a central government request. Meghalaya is the second state in the North East, after Assam, to make this change.
Employers, however, will have to meet certain security measures before being able to hire women for the night shift. These include the installation of CCTV cameras, mechanisms to monitor safety measures, etc.
The cabinet also decided to regularise the ad hoc appointments of an additional 850 employees, who were appointed prior to 2007. They were missed out in the list of 3,000 that was prepared for regularisation in 2022 after the cabinet decided to regularise all ad hoc appointments made in different departments based on a Supreme Court directive.
Other decisions made in cabinet:
- Financial powers will be given to the Executive Engineer in the Fisheries Department to simplify and streamline the process to carry out small works
- The Meghalaya Ceiling on Government Guarantees Bills 2025 was approved, based on which public sector undertakings, statutory boards, corporate and cooperative institutes can secure loans from commercial banks and financial institutions
- An amendment to the Meghalaya Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service) Rules 2008 was approved. The amendment will ensure higher benefits to the registered labourers with regards to medical, education of children, welfare pension, disability pension, family pension, etc.
- Provisions of the Assured Career Progression Scheme (ACPS) with regards to provision for promotion were relaxed. The scheme envisages placement in the next higher pay scale/grant of financial benefits to government employees purely on personal basis and shall have no relevance to seniority or amount to functional/regular promotion nor require creation of new posts for the purpose. As such, there shall be no stepping up of pay for the senior employee on the ground that the junior employee in the cadre has got higher pay under the ACP scheme.
- An amendment to the Meghalaya Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act 2006, which is in line with the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission, was passed wherein the normal borrowing ceiling of the state has been fixed at 3.5 percent of GSDP for 2024-25.
- The cabinet approved direct purchase of land under the office of the Deputy Commissioner of East Khasi Hills and West Jaintia Hills for implementation of the New Shillong Water Supply Scheme Phase 1.
- Government servants undergoing organ transplants will be given additional leave of up to six months
- The cabinet has finalised the list of dignitaries for the Republic Day celebrations in district and civil sub-division headquarters, etc
- The cabinet has repealed the Meghalaya Civil Service (Commutation of Pension) Rules 1992 and simplified the process.
