Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui today informed that the Centre has released Rs 153 crore for the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme, which will finally allow the state government to pay pending salaries to teachers.
There are around 16,000 SSA teachers in Meghalaya and they have not received salaries since July.
“The funds have already been transferred to the state exchequer. We will be able to clear four months of the pending salaries,” Rymbui informed media persons.
However, despite the news being a sort of Christmas present, the teachers will still have to wait until the first week of January before their monies are credited to their bank accounts.
Rymbui said that the government is not going to deduct the corpus fund of Rs 79 crore sanctioned by the government as the funds which were received are not sufficient to clear the pending salaries of the teachers. Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma had earlier sanctioned Rs 79 crore to meet the exigency, which was disbursed to the teachers three months ago.
Sangma tweeted today, “I would like to express my gratitude to the @EduMinOfIndia for the release of the SSA funds yesterday which will cover the pending salaries of the teachers in our State. The Dept. is now working for release of the same to the districts at the earliest.”
On December 15, thousands of school teachers of Meghalaya sent postcards to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention in releasing their salaries under the Centre’s SSA Mission.
