Breaking: Assam to disburse full salaries & pensions to employees for May

Guwahati: In the midst of the coronavirus crisis that has wrecked economies across the world, Assam Government on Thursday announced that it shall disburse full salaries and pensions to its employees for the month of May.

Announcing this on Twitter moments earlier, the state Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma wrote, "Assam Govt has decided to disburse full salaries & pensions for the month of May. This is possible due to the release of devolution grant by union http://govt.My deep gratitude to PM Sri Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman."

In the same tweet, Biswa Sarma said that Assam's own revenue has also shown "gradual improvement."

Similarly, Meghalaya government on Wednesday said that it has decided not to enforce deferment of salaries of it's employees for the month of May. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma informed that earlier, the government had decided to go for deferment of salaries in the wake of uncertainty in the form of Central taxes. "Though our share has gone down it has not dropped as much as we expected," the Chief Minister said.

Sangma also stated that in the wake of certain stability in devolution of taxes from the Center, the State has decided to suspend deferment of salaries of State government employees. He however said that in future, the deferment of salaries will depend on the devolution of taxes by the Center to the State.

This announcement gains extra significance against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic that has swept across the nation, prompting the Government to shut down all activities barring the very essential ones amid a national lockdown to mitigate the spread of the infection. As a consequence, the economy was severely disrupted, and lay offs were announced by several top companies.

ALSO WATCH: Harmeet Singh, ADGP, Assam Police & Miguel Das, Child Rights Activist