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Karam Prakash
Tribune News Service
Patiala, February 5
Amid unrest among contractual SSA/RMSA teachers over the non-payment of their salary, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), in an RTI reply, revealed that a majority of the funds under the Samagra Shiksha for 2018-19 had been already released to the state.
On the other hand, the Punjab government had claimed a delay in the release of funds by the Centre. The SSA/RMSA teachers have not been paid salaries for the past eight months and recently, their wages were slashed by nearly 60 per cent, again on the “pretext” of delay of funds from the MHRD.
The MHRD said till January 31, it had released Rs 442 crore to the Punjab government under the Samagra Shiksha scheme. As per the current funding system, the Centre and the state share 60:40 ratio of the total approved budget under the SSA. This year, the MHRD had approved Rs 900.61 crore for the state. Of this, it was to provide Rs 444 crore, while the remaining had to be funded by the state.
However, despite the timely release of funds by the MHRD, thousands of contractual teachers are working without salaries for the last eight months. Besdies, the government has even not been able to provide winter uniform to more than 12.7 lakh school students till now.
The MHRD has also cleared that around Rs 175 crore remained unspent till November 30, 2018.
Meanwhile, the protesting teachers have alleged that those who have opted for regular jobs on government’s terms are getting salaries on time. Hardeep Toderpur, co-convener, Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha, said, “The MHRD has cleared the air over funds under the SSA. Apparently the state government has misused the funds. It has been lying to the thousands of teachers.”
Gagan Ranu, a teacher, claimed, “The Education Secretary has told the SSA Project Director not to pay salaries to the protesting teachers until they opt for regular jobs at a measly salary of Rs 15,300. This is being done to prove their claim that 94 per cent of the teachers are ready to accept the offer.”
Rajinder Singh, spokesperson for the Education Department, said, “Earlier, we were getting Rs 1,149 crore, but this year we got only Rs 442 crore from the Centre. Teachers will be given their salaries as per the norms. We have already asked for more funds to release the payment.”
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