Govt has no additional expenditure by appointing serving officers in Lokayukta: Meghalaya CM

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaJanuary 24, 2024

Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Tuesday said that the appointment of serving officers in the office of the Lokayukta is as per rules and procedures and to ensure there is no additional expenditure on the government.

Speaking to reporters on the issue, Sangma said that the government had already clarified many times that the provisions under which the persons earlier were appointed, the rules were not followed since it was a temporary arrangement due to shortage of officials that time.

“Because it has to be officer of the secretary level and above and hence we had a bit of an issue in the sense we had shortage of officers so we decided at that point in time that we will as a temporary arrangement go for a retired officer, which is not as per the rule and hence, rectify that and regularise that we have follow the rules which says that it has to be an officer of the rank of a secretary,” he said.

Moreover, the chief minister said government has to take additional expenditure for appointment of retired personnel

“(Therefore), if it is a serving officer there is no expenditure because he/she gets a salary but if it is a retired person, we have to spend from our own side and hence it was in the interest of the rules to be followed and in the interest of the expenditure for the state that this post be regularised, we were working on it to regularise much before this but then it took us about a year and a half almost but we have regularise the process so this is purely as per the rules and procedures that we need to follow,” Sangma stated.

The VPP has decided to suspend its agitation after the state government assured to hold discussion with them on the issue.

Asked when he would invite the leaders of the opposition party, the CM said “We are very open whoever is there if anybody wants to meet they can come and meet me.”