Meghalaya: CM Sangma blames it on Congress-era mismanagement for GHADC salary crisis

Correspondent

Shillong: Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has attributed the ongoing financial crisis in the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC), including the non-payment of salaries for the past 43 months, to the mismanagement and irregular appointments made during the previous Congress-led Executive Committee’s tenure.

Sangma stated that the GHADC’s administrative system had been severely compromised by “appointments made without any service rules and without sanctioned posts.” He said, “When the National People’s Party (NPP) took over, the GHADC had over 2,000 employees. To put this in perspective, the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council had about 1,800 employees, and the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council had around 600. Clearly, GHADC was grossly overstaffed.”

Discussing the financial burden, he noted that GHADC’s salary expenditure now stands at approximately Rs 6–7 crore monthly, while the council’s revenue generation is only Rs 1.5–2 crore per month. “This leaves a deficit of around Rs 5 crore,” Sangma pointed out. In comparison, at the time NPP took over, the Khasi Hills ADC was paying about Rs 4 crore in salaries, and the Jaintia Hills ADC about Rs 5 crore.

On the issue of ghost employees, the Chief Minister revealed, “We went through the entire employee list and found a large number of ghost employees, whose names have since been removed. We have not appointed a single new employee since taking charge because we realized the system was unsustainable.”

He added that the number of employees has been brought down from over 2,000 to around 1,300 in the GHADC.

Clarifying the state’s role, Sangma emphasized that district councils are autonomous bodies with separate administration, budgets, revenue, and expenditure. “It is not the responsibility of the state government to pay their salaries,” he said.

However, he noted that the state government has extended significant financial assistance. “In the last three years, the government of Meghalaya has provided Rs 120 crore as an advance to GHADC, over and above their due amounts. Of this, the council has cleared salaries for about 25 to 28 months,” Sangma informed.

He further explained that many of the pending dues date back to 2014–2017 and had accumulated over the years due to gaps in disbursement and irregular staffing practices.

The Chief Minister also said that the government recently released Rs 35 crore to the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council as part of their share of funds.

Highlighting the NPP’s reform-oriented approach, Sangma stated, “When we came in, I made it clear that there should be no more new appointments. Though I don’t interfere in council affairs, I took a review and instructed them to stop further hiring.”

“We’ve slowly brought the situation under control, although it has been difficult. People expect new jobs, especially when posts become vacant, but we found many of these earlier appointments were illegal,” he said.

Concluding, Sangma placed the blame squarely on the previous administration. “If anyone is to blame, it is the previous dispensation that appointed people left, right, and centre—without considering revenue, budget constraints, or proper procedures.”

He asserted that reforms have only begun under the NPP government, which has refrained from any new appointments to ensure existing employees can be paid.

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