TURA, Feb 17: Garo Hills Autonomous District Council is heading into a budget session next week with the threat of a strike by its employees looming over non-payment of pending salaries.

The employees, under the aegis of Non-Gazetted Employees Association, had threatened to halt work from the beginning of next week but have since reportedly scaled it down, in view of the council holding its crucial budget session on Monday for the allocation of funds to various departments.

The angry employees plan to wait it out until the budget session gets over before taking the next step.

The proposed strike has also led to a war of words between the NPP led Executive Committee (EC) running the GHADC and the leaders of the employees association who accuse the council authorities of failing to keep their word to clear their long pending dues.

“The employee association has never approached us nor intimated that they are going to go on strike. There was no information given to us, no official letter, or even a move to have a meeting with us to discuss the issue. We came to know from other sources only,” says GHADC Chief Executive Member Albinush R Marak.

Repeated delays in the disbursement of monthly salaries for successive years has led to a huge accumulation of pending dues for the hundreds of employees of the oldest autonomous institution in the Garo Hills.

On the last count, the employees were facing 32 long months of salary dues. Their last salary payment was made in December of last year, just around Christmas, when two months of pending dues were given.

The employees are peeved because they claim the ruling EC had assured them of another two months of pending dues by January, this year.

“No question of meeting with the EC to discuss the salary issue when they had already assured salary payment by January. But they broke their assurance,” says agitated employees.

But, Chief Executive Member Albinush Marak claims that was not the case.

“We have always given assurance that whenever the state gives us assistance and provides funds we will release salaries. So, even this time we had expected state assistance to help our employees because schools and colleges are opening and money is required for admissions,” says the CEM.

“We plan to meet and apprise Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma when he arrives in Tura, sometime this week,” informed the CEM but adds that it is “humanly impossible” for anyone to clear such a mammoth figure of dues in quick succession.

“From the time our EC took office, we have cleared all salary dues. In fact we have even given salaries for 34 months although our tenure was shorter, and that clearance includes the tenure of our first CEM Benedict Marak since he was heading this very same EC,” says CEM Albinush Marak as he tries to justify his EC’s track record on dues clearance.

“The current dues of over 30 months are the backlog left behind by previous ECs of the GHADC. We are now having to clean up the mess,” protests Marak.