The government has urged striking non-teaching staff of the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) to resume work as their agitation has led to SSA teachers not receiving their salaries.
The All Meghalaya SSA Non Teaching Staffs Association (AMSSANTSA) have been on strike over their demand for an 80 percent raise in salary, among other issues. Talks are going on with the government, which has previously agreed to a 25 percent hike.
According to the State Project Director of the SSA, Swapnil Tembe, the sit-in demonstration of the non-teaching staff is resulting in delays in releasing salaries of teachers, as well as disruption to disbursement of uniform grants, library grants, school grants, etc.
“There are more than 10,000 SSA teachers who could not get their July salaries till now due to this sit-in demonstration,” Tembe said in a statement.
According to the director, steps are being taken to resolve the impasse and to come up with an alternate mechanism.
“Personnel from other verticals are being identified to carry out the release of salaries. But this would eventually delay the utilisation of the first instalment received without which the next instalments will not be released by the government of India,” Tembe stated.
He also said that after AMSSANTSA went on strike, the state government’s approval was received for 25 percent enhancement but this was not accepted by the association.
Subsequently the state government constituted a rationalisation committee headed by the Commissioner & Secretary in the Education Department along with representatives from the AMSSANTSA and it has already had three rounds of meetings to discuss their grievances and to come up with a rationalisation structure.
In the second meeting, held on August 5, several key recommendations, such as a rationalised base pay as per number of years of service, an annual increment of 5 percent and several other welfare measures were recommended.
“The rationalisation committee looked closely at the pay levels of all staff at state, district and block levels and observed that the block staff needed much more consideration than other levels and then came out with a range of enhancements, taking into consideration the length of service, existing salary and nature of work including qualification criteria,” Tembe’s statement read. “The recommendation of the committee through its minutes signed by all the members present goes up to a 100 percent increase of salary for some categories which needed major overhaul. As all categories of posts were receiving different levels, it was felt and unanimously agreed that a flat rate of enhancement will not do justice to most and thus a rational structure was derived at.”
Since the rationalisation committee is actively engaged in resolving the problems of the non-teaching staff, the state government feels that AMSSANTSA should reasonably be expected to return to work.
