SHILLONG, OCT 3: Meghalaya Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Schools’ Association (MSSASA) today demanded the immediate release of the pending eight-month arrears and two-month salary to over 12,481 SSA teachers in the state.
“We expressed displeasure against the non-releasing of our eight months pending arrears from July last year to February this year and salaries for the month of August and September,” MSSASA president Aristotle C Rymbai said here.
He informed that the organization has also sought the intervention of the Secretary of Education department WR Lyngdoh and SSA-SEMAM state project director Ambrose Ch Marak in a representation submitted here on Tuesday.
“We have requested the authorities concerned to address the matter and release the pending arrears and salaries at the earliest on or before October 20, so that any further agitation can be averted in the coming days,” he said.
According to him, there has been irregularity in the disbursement of salaries to the SSA teachers in the past four years.
He said that earlier the SSA-SEMAM had released 3 months arrears (April to June, 2016) and salary of current academic year till the month of July after around 8,000 SSA teachers along with family members staged a protest on April 12.
Meanwhile, Rymbai said that the association had also sought clarification on the delay in releasing the pending arrears and salaries though the MHRD had already released the 2nd installment for 2016-17 to the state government.
“Due to such delay, teachers are forced to borrow money from other sources to pay course fees to get enrolled for D.EL.ED programme of NIOS besides meeting their day to day expenses. We are in desperate need of our wages,” he said.
On the other hand, MSSASA president said that the association is not blaming the state government alone because it is also the fault of the MHRD for the delay in the releasing of funds.
As per SSA-RTE framework and Project Approval Board (PAB) Minutes, the scheduled date for released of funds under SSA will be in two installments, the Ad hoc Installment will be released in the month of April, 1st Installment will be released in the month of June and the 2nd Installment is to be released in November after submission of audit report by States/UTs’ government.
But the delay and non-transferring of funds by Ministry of Human Resource Development to States/UTs’ government within the time bound manner has created a lot of problems to the teachers.
“Therefore, it is the responsibility of both MHRD and state government to ensure that budgets under SSA are transferred in time,” Rymbai asserted.
By Our Reporter
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