Shillong: The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers in Meghalaya on Thursday called off their indefinite sit-in-protest after the state government’s assurance regarding their pending salaries.
Deputy Chief Minister Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong, invited the agitating teachers under the banner of the Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) for talks and assured the teachers to release the pending salaries for four months.
Tynsong said that the salaries will be released within the next week and the remaining one-month salary will be paid to the teachers once the state government received the funds from the central government.
Tynsong assured that the government will release the pending salary
capping norms amounting to Rs.44.0 crore by the end of the day.
“The State government will replenish the Corpus Fund of Rs.78.0 crores, which will be refunded when the first installment is received from GOI, and the Education Department to send the proposal by the end of the day. The above amount will be able to cater to the payment of four months’ pending salaries of the teachers as soon as the amount is credited to the SNA account and in any case not later than July 27 of this month,” he said.
Tynsong informed that the government has decided to set up an education
Commission to address the grievances of the school teachers in the
state. “As far as the enhancement of salary is concerned, the education
The commission to be constituted by the government will deal with the
matter,” Tynsong said.
The MSSASA teachers had been camping for four days and three nights at the parking lot near the state additional secretariat in protest against the delay of the Conrad Sangma-loed government to clear their five-month salaries.
Following the meeting, MSSASA Aristotle Rymbai addressed the agitating teachers at the parking lot near the state additional
secretariat on the outcome of the meeting with the Deputy Chief Minister and called off their protest.
Earlier in the day, a delegation MSSASA met Governor Satya Pal Malik sought his intervention, and took up the matter with the center to release the funds for their salaries.
After giving a patient hearing to the grievances of the teachers, Malik immediately telephoned Chief Minister Conrad Sangma and asked him to resolve the issue at the earliest.
Meanwhile, opposition Trinamool Congress legislator George Lyngdoh also wrote to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, seeking his immediate intervention for disbursing pending salaries of SSA teaching and non-teaching staff in Meghalaya.
“The prolonged and repeated delay in paying the salaries has brought numerous hardships to the SSA teaching and non-teaching staff
and more than 20,000 families are being affected. The teachers have to
borrow from their family members, neighbors, and friends just to pay
the travel fare to reach their school and also to feed their families.
The teachers have been agitating since July 18 2022 till date and
cannot attend to their school duties to the apathetic environment,”
the opposition chief whip in the state assembly informed Pradhan.
Noting that regular and timely receipt of wages is a basic human right, Lyngdoh said, “we cannot make our citizens toil without giving them their dues. If the delay is on behalf of the Ministry of Education, I strongly appeal to your honor to kindly intervene to ensure that the SSA Funds due to Meghalaya are released at the earliest and to resolve the ongoing agitation which would encourage our teachers to return to their respective schools.”
