It is painful to be informed that Government employees, especially those in the lower rungs, are denied payment of salaries just because the funds are not available or will be available after some time. Imagine in these days when the living cost has soared high so much so that it is become difficult for a small employee like a school teacher or a clerk to make both ends meet, what it means to him when his salary is deferred. How can he feed his family members for whom he is the only bread earner?
This is practically happening in the case of the teachers appointed under RMSA and SSA schemes. Recruitment of teachers took place in the State under the schemes floated by the Central Government. There was an understanding that in case the State Government accepted the schemes, its funding would come from both sources, the Central and State according to an agreed formula. The State authorities claim that they have released their committed portion of the funding but the Central Government’s committed portion of funding has not been released so far. Naturally in such a situation, if it is the ground situation, the teachers employed under the scheme are put to great hardship. It is inhuman to extract work from them but go on making only promises of paying them full salary whenever the funds are released.
The question is when the Central Government has been informed that the State has accepted and implemented the schemes floated by it, the matter should have been regularized and the allocations transferred without any break knowing that teachers recruited under the scheme have to be paid regularly without any break. But this has not happened and the break in transferring allocated funds has caused severe hardship to the teachers. It makes the teaching community disgruntled and disappointed. Perhaps the State Government could have paid them on account from some other head. But it seems that the State Government either is not in a position to use that alternative or wanted to exert pressure on the Central Government. Whatever the case, the brunt has to be borne by the helpless teachers. In a welfare state, this is something unusual and we have not heard of it previously. Of course the Central Government has released some amount but the bulk of it remains unreleased.
We would appeal the Central and the State Government to take urgent view of this situation and try all they can to mitigate the deprivation of the teachers recruited under the above mentioned schemes. It has to be kept in mind that in these times of rising prices when the cost of living has escalated manifold small employees should be dealt with sympathy and compassion. We hope the Governments in Srinagar and New Delhi understand the urgency of the matter and thus take immediate steps to resolve the deadlock.
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