Shillong, June 15 : The global economic slowdown is likely to delay the implementation of the recommendation of the Fourth Pay Commission in Meghalaya.
Confirming this today, an official attributed the delay to an additional financial burden on the state’s exchequer.
The Fourth Pay Commission submitted the report to the government at the end of last year.
In February this year, an empowered committee was formed to examine the percentage of pay hike according to the pay panel’s report.
In May, the state government decided not to give the committee any more extensions beyond July.
While the state government employees demanded an early implementation, the Meghalaya government is in a dilemma as at least Rs 500 crore a year is needed to implement the pay hike.
Principal secretary, finance and member of the empowered committee on pay hike, Dev Verma today said that the committee was ready to submit its report to the government in July.
“We will follow the deadline to submit our report, but we cannot say when the state government will implement the pay hike,” he said.
After receiving the recommendations of the pay panel, the state cabinet had earlier decided to provide interim relief of 10 per cent of basic pay, including dearness allowance, subject to the minimum of Rs 400 per month with effect from December last year, to all the government employees.
The financial burden of the state for the interim relief is Rs 7.7 crore per month.
On Thursday, at a meeting with chief secretary Ranjan Chatterjee in Delhi to discuss the impact of global finan- cial crisis, Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said that Meghalaya’s share of central taxes would come down from Rs 664 crore last year to Rs 636 crore this year because of the economic slowdown.
The meeting was part of the pre-budget discussions with finance ministers of the states.
In addition, Rs 500 crore is needed for Meghalaya this year to implement the pay panel’s recommendations. Chatterjee said these would affect the state’s financial position as its fiscal deficit would go up to 6 per cent against the present 1.5 per cent.
He, however, said the state government would urge the Centre to provide more funds to Meghalaya as it was depending on central funds for overall growth.
At a recent meeting in Shillong with officials of the 13th Finance Commission, the state government had sought additional funds for the full implementation of the pay panel’s recommendations.
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