Relief for SSA teachers

After seven long months of penury and helplessness, the large group of 45,000 teachers employed under the centrally sponsored scheme of Sarva Shikhsha Abhyan (SSA) will heave a sigh of relief. In addition to SSA teachers, Rahbar-e Talim (RET) teachers will also be the beneficiaries of good news. About two weeks ago, we had in these columns taken up their case and drawn the attention of civil society to the traumatic conditions through which these teachers were passing. We had warned that there was a limit to patience and the government should not make it a point to test it as it could become counter-productive. Actually that was about to happen when these teachers announced that they are forced to go on strike though against their conscience. In a sense, we should appreciate that these teachers bore the seven month long period of trauma without salary with fortitude and patience. What they have suffered is something from which the Education Department should learn a lesson.
When the SSA scheme was accepted by the State government, obviously it had to go by the norms laid down by the Union Ministry of HRD. The norm was that the expenditures on the scheme would be born in the ratio of 35:65. The State government had to bear 35 per cent of the expenditure including the salary bill of the teachers. No fewer than 45,000 teachers were appointed under the scheme with 20,000 in Kashmir and 25,000 in Jammu province. Obviously, the MLAs, MLCs, Ministers and bureaucrats of the day must have taken the credit of appointing these teachers. That is all right and they have done a good job. But they should have also ensured that teachers appointed under the scheme receive their salaries uninterruptedly. In other words, they should have made the government commit to meeting 35 per cent of the expenditure on this count from State resources. What actually happened is that the State Government failed to deposit its share of expenditure of 41 crore rupees, and in the process, the Ministry of HRD withheld paying its share under the stipulated conditions. In this process, the teachers nearly half a lakh of them, became the victims. They suffered endlessly and for seven long months remained without salary. Imagine to what hardship they and their families were put to in these times of escalation of cost of living.
The State government made the lame excuse that it had no funds and owing to financial crunch it could not pay the salary of the teachers under discussion. Nobody is convinced that there was crunch to the extent the state Government claimed. Anyway, now this issue has been resolved by the Union Government which has changed the norm of the scheme to 10:90 for three Northern Hilly States of J&K, Himachal and Uttaranchal. The Union Finance Ministry cleared the case and wrote to the HRD Ministry of its decision which was conveyed by the HRD to the State Government. This has brought great relief to the teachers working in SSA category. The State government has to bear only 10 per cent of the total expenditure, and it remains to be seen whether it will meet that or make another lame excuse to extract the amount from the Central Government.

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