Our Correspondent
Kohima | September 22
In response to the ‘Calling Attention’ motion raised Congress MLA K.L Chishi on the floor of the House yesterday, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio today issued a formal statement wherein he made it clear that there is absolutely no issue of breach of privilege of the House as accused by Chishi.
In a written statement read out on the floor of the House in reply to Chishi’s accusations – the matter relating to an unstarred question relating to the 6th Revision of Pay (RoP), the Chief Minister rubbished the accusation of breach of privilege by the government by circulating a ‘model answer’ in reply to a ‘model question’ asked by the questionnaire to as many as 72 departments. The ‘model answer’, he explained, was circulated in the nature of an advice or assistance to the departments and that this is purely an internal matter of the state government.
Seeking to get the facts straight with regard to the 6th RoP, he explained that the state government had made several requests to the central government to come to its assistance for implementation of 6th RoP to which the central government had expressed inability to give direct financial assistance for implementation of the new pay scales but expressed willingness to take into account the extra deficit in the state’s Balance from Current Revenue (BCR while finalizing the outlay of the state’s annual plan.
Accordingly, the state government took its own decision to implement the 6th RoP for the employees. In doing so, it had made the sacrifice in terms of a smaller outlay for the annual plan 2010-11, the growth size of which was zero% against the growth rate of 25% during the previous year. The current year 2012-13 growth rate was 27.07% over last year, which clearly shows how the state had also made sacrifice in terms of accepting a zero step-up in the state’s annual plan for 2010-11, he stated.
On the issue of the Rs.712 crore which was questioned by the Opposition, he explained that the amount was the total projected shortage of non-plan provision for salaries if the 6th RoP was to be implemented. But this shortage included the already existing shortage of Rs.102 crore on account of salaries even if the 6th RoP was not implemented, hence the actual shortage purely on account of 6th RoP being projected at Rs.610 crore. All these shortages or enhancements in the deficit BCR of the state were duly taken into account and adjusted by the Planning Commission while working out the side of the state’s annual plan for 2010-11, he said adding this process of adjustment of the enhanced deficits in the state’s non-plan expenditure for finalizing the state’s annual plan is a normal process and that it is quite different from receiving grant/money from the Government of India for implementation of the 6th RoP.
To substantiate, he read out a copy of a letter issued by the Union Minister of State for Finance addressed to the Leader of Opposition wherein he had clearly mentioned that “funds have not been released to any state for implementation of pay revision for state Government employees”.
