Govt not to defer salary of employees: CM

 “The government has decided not to enforce deferment of salaries for the month of May to be paid in June,” Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced while addressing media on Wednesday.

Earlier last month, the state government had decided to defer the payment of a part of the salaries of cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and its 80,000 employees for two months – April and May.

Sangma however said the salary deferment was a precautionary step for effective management of the state finances in view of the unprecedented situation arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty in the devolution of central taxes and revenue collection of the state.

“Therefore, the decision taken last month was against this backdrop of uncertainty that there could be a decrease in central taxes,” he said.

The chief minister further informed that the central shares released by the Government of India for the month April and May has not gone down as much as what was expected.

“Therefore, since there is some stability in the central shares, we have decided not to defer the salary of government employees,” he said.

Sangma however maintained that the future course of action of the state government would depend on the devolution of taxes.

Informing that the state’s revenue collection has drastically dropped due to the COVID-19 situation, the chief minister however said, “But we are hopeful that it will pick up in the next few months (in view of the relaxation given to some economic activities).”

According to him, investment in health infrastructures will also continue to be the top most priority of the state government.

It may be mentioned here that the state government has spent over Rs 115 crore from its own resources to deal with the health related challenges and for providing relief.

In the just concluded reassembled budget session of the Assembly, the chief minister had informed: “The total state resources, tax and non-tax, collected in April 2019 was Rs 207.61 crore, the revenue collected in April this year was merely Rs 76.40 crore, a fall of Rs 131.21 crore in monthly revenue collection.”

He had also informed that the releases from the Centre have also been lesser than expected. “While the budgetary estimate for monthly tax devolution was Rs 428 crore, we had only received Rs 352 crore in April, a shortfall of Rs 76 crore. Therefore, now we need to see how we are going to make up for this over 140 crore deficit,” Sangma had stated.

By Our Reporter