Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray has directed the government for waiver to farmers with the chief minister and party colleagues echoing his views. However, deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde (BJP) who is also the energy minister has made it clear that the Maharashtra State Electricity Board cannot provide free power to farmers without budgetary support of Rs 650 crore from the state government.

Joshi said that the issue was discussed at the coordination committee meeting of both the parties on Thursday night which went on for over three hours. The discussions, he added, were inconclusive.

"Both the parties are firm on their stance but I am hopeful that a solution would be found. I feel nobody should speak publicly on this issue. At least I will desist from airing myviews in public," he said.

According to Joshi, Balasaheb felt that the issue of free power supply to farmers should be resolved amicably. He said that the issue would be taken up at the next meeting of the Shiv Sena-BJP coordination committee to be held soon.

Joshi said that his government would implement the fifth pay commission to the remaining six categories of the state government employees by rejecting the Sukhtankar committee report on their wage hike. He added that the committee, which had made recommendations related to a revised pay scale, wanted the basic pay of the employees in the agriculture, police, revenue, forests, public works and irrigation departments to be reverted to that of the fourth pay commission and then implement the fifth pay commission accordingly.

However, Joshi said that the state government decided against this as their salaries were increased during the last decade. They would be hiked in accordance with the fifth pay commission with the present salary as the base. Hesaid that the decision would cost the state exchequer an additional Rs 150 crore per annum. About 6,25,498 employees will be benefited by the government's decision, he added.