After a recent meeting of the state cabinet, chief minister D.D. Lapang said the state government would ask for a one-time grant of Rs 562 crore from the Prime Minister to implement the Fourth Pay Commission recommendations from this year.
Though Lapang has been camping in Delhi along with his deputy Mukul Sangma and other state officials for the past week to meet Manmohan Singh and submit the memorandum regarding more funds for the pay hike, no such meeting took place.
The Meghalaya employees wanted the implementation of the Fourth Pay Commission by July 31, but that could prove a far-fetched dream.
The model code of conduct, which has come into effect from July 16 because of the byelection, an official source said, would delay the announcement of the pay package even if the Centre approves the Meghalaya government’s demand.
After the Fourth Pay Commission submitted its recommendations at the end of last year, the state government had constituted an empowered committee to examine the percentage of the pay hike to be given to the government employees. Meghalaya, the committee figured out, needed more than Rs 500 crore a year to fully implement the recommendations of the pay panel.
The state government had only given an interim relief of 10 per cent of basic pay including dearness allowance subject to the minimum of Rs 400 per month from December last year to the government employees after receiving the report of the pay panel.