The Shillong Municipal Board authorities have threatened to invoke the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) if the board employees did not withdraw their agitation that began yesterday.

Official sources said the board CEO T Lyngwa has asked the employees to report for duty by this noon as the three-day ceasework by Shillong Municipal Employees' Association, which began since yesterday to protest delay in disbursement of 40 per cent arrears as per the revised pay, continued.

The strike by hundreds of employees severely crippled essential services ? mainly water supply and garbage disposal - with the association having threatened to continue the stir for an indefinite period in case of non-fulfilment of their demands.

"If the employees refuse to budge, ESMA may be invoked and their leaders may be arrested," the source said.

"All the state government employees have got their arrears. But we are yet to get it. Even our salaries are being released very late," association President Sylvanus Pyngrope said.

The association demanded immediate release of the arrears and payment of salaries by 10th of every month.

The state government had last year announced an overall pay hike of 32 per cent for all its employees, with retrospective effect from January 1, 2007.