Dimapur, June 16 (EMN): Describing the Cabinet’s decision to regularise the newly recruited 27 medical officers as violating the spirit of fundamental rights of equal opportunity provided in the Constitution, president of Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has suggested the government to keep its decision in abeyance and hold talks with NHM Employees’ Association of Nagaland (Nean) and Nagaland Junior Doctors’ Association (NJDA) by upholding the values of constitutional provisions and equal opportunity. It also appealed to Nean to call off their agitation to save lives.
“The fiasco created by the Cabinet decision in the Medical department during this time of pandemic is uncalled for. Regularisation was not at all a priority,” NPCC president K Therie stated. He added that people need maximum service output from the medical fraternity to save lives from the novel coronavirus pandemic and work together with the spirit of sacrifice.
Noting that discrepancy was meted out to NHM employees from the beginning in terms of lesser salary for the same work, posting in outposts and salaries not paid on time, Therie urged the government to play a fair game with all its children.
He reminded that the criteria or yardstick for regularisation is normally three years of service length, subject to performance. He added that same salary should be paid for same qualifications and same work. He urged the state government to resolve discrepancy in salaries with the government of India.
As senior government officials are fully aware of the constitutional provisions even if ministers do not understand, he stated that government should be guided by those constitutional provisions, acts and rules to make decisions. He also stated that it should be the duty of secretaries to point out the provisions of law.
Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) was astounded by the speech of Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio during a press conference on June 15, where he spoke about the state’s financial crisis and a ‘bleak future’ instead of instilling confidence among the people caught in the nightmare of Covid-19.
NPCC’s statement through its communication department has termed it as ‘unbecoming’ for a four term chief minister for failing to inspire confidence despite all the power and resources at his disposal.
“Instead of briefing about the mounting state deficit and a near empty state exchequer, he must rather tender apology to the people of Nagaland for landing the state in such a miserable position as he has been the chief minister for four consecutive terms since 2003, except for his sojourn to Delhi as Lok Sabha MP in between,” NPCC stated.
It recounted that DAN-I government under his leadership had started off with a clean slate in 2003 and the then finance minister had even presented a surplus budget of INR 18 crore while presenting state budget for 2004-05.
NPCC claimed that it has been a continuous downhill slide for the past 15 years after Rio directly took over the finance portfolio in 2005.
NPCC also stated that the budget deficit projected at INR 1652.64 crore was just a ‘stage-managed figure’ for public consumption as it claimed that the actual deficit figures would be well over INR 4000 crore if the deficit as well as nonexistent money in civil deposit is taken into consideration.
“The present miserable condition of Nagaland is all the creation of Mr Rio and his cronies, who have relentlessly pursued the policy of gobbling whatever they could lay their hands and prospering out of it,” NPCC alleged.
It went on to state that the few developmental activities that had taken place were also concentrated in their area of interest ‘only to satiate their narrow vision.’
Accusing NDPP of making feeble attempts to shift blame, NPCC stated that 17 years is long enough to develop the state if the chief minister was really sincere in his thoughts and commitment to work for the people and develop the state. It alleged that there was total absence of creating avenues for employment and building infrastructures for revenue generation during the past 17 years.
It also accused the state government of taking an easy recourse in imposing Covid cess on fuel products, not realising the overall cascading effect on the economy. While other North-eastern states that attained statehood after Nagaland have made huge progress in revenue generation through creation of necessary infrastructures, it stated that Nagaland continues to languish far behind with those in power taking the excuse of unresolved Naga political problem to hide all their failures and massive corruption.
It further stated that the answer to huge deficit figures that the chief minister spoke about would be found in the ‘mushrooming of lavish private and commercial properties of those in power.’
NPCC therefore stated that it is now time for people of Nagaland to ‘realise the extent of damage done by the chief minister and his colleagues through their moneybag politics.’ It added that unless the public collectively voice out, people in power would continue to only talk about deficit figures and poor financial health without bothering to fix the problem.