Imphal, July 17: Tribal Development Minister Ngamthang Haokip today informed the Assembly during question hour that 83 staff and employees of Manipur Tribal Development Corporation Limited have not been paid their salaries for the last 17 months.

Replying to a question raised by Opposition MLA Dr Nimaichand Luwang, the Minister said that the last time the salaries and allowances of the employees were paid was in November 2001.On the programmes and work taken up by the Corporation, the Minister said that the MTDC undertakes a number of programmes including Civil Deposit works, NDCFDC term loan, NSFDC term loan, NSKFDC term loan, external aided project and mushroom training scheme.

For the six schemes, the Corporation utilized Rs 10,76,53,355 during the last three years, the Minister added.

CJM Courts in Cdl, Spt and Tml: To a question raised by MLA BD Behring, Law Minister L Nandakumar said that due to many factors, the sittings of the CJM courts of Chandel, Senapati and Tamenglong are held at Imphal.

Elaborating, the Minister said that the Chandel CJM sits at Imphal as the office building for the CJM is yet to be completed.

The contractor who was earlier entrusted with the task of constructing the building has been removed and process to award the work to another contractor is nearing finalization, said the Minister.

The CJM office at Tamenglong was blown away during a strong storm in 1994 and since then the CJM has been sitting at Imphal, added Nandakumar.

The CJM will go back to Tamenglong once construction of the new office is finalized.

Expressing surprise that a building which was blown away in 1994 is yet to be repaired even today, BD Behring said that Tamenglong district MLAs have heard that the construction work of the new building is over.

Nandakumar further said that the Senapati CJM office was shifted to Imphal since July 15, 1993 as the CJM was threatened.

Karong AC MLA Henry Paotei said that it is not only the CJM who faces threat and expressed strong resentment that the CJM office should be functioning from Imphal.

SSA: In response to a question raised by Andro AC MLA, S Chandra, School Education Minister Y Mani said that though the Centre has given the green signal to go ahead with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the same could not be implemented here as the SCERT (Autonomous) has filed a case in the Court.

The scheme was supposed to have started from 1998 but the undue delay may result in the scheme being withdrawn, said the MLA and urged the Government to do something to vacate the Court case.

Y Mani said that the case is presently with the Labour Court and assured that due action will be initiated to get the case vacated adding that the higher Courts have vacated the same.