Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui today said that Meghalaya is hopeful that the Centre will release funds for salaries of the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers of the state.
Informing that none of the states have received the funds, Rymbui said, “We have sent communications to the Ministry of Human Resources Development (now Ministry of Education) for the release of the funds and we are hopeful that the Centre will release these in the coming days to allow the department to pay the salaries of the SSA teachers before Christmas.”
He also stated that the delay in the release of funds by the Centre has also affected other activities under SSA.
On Sunday SSA teachers under the Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) banner decided to launch a postcard campaign to the Prime Minister’s office from December 15 to protest against the delay in releasing the first installments of the funds.
Rymbui also said that he was unaware why the central government was delaying the release of the funds.
The minister also informed reporters that the project appraisal submitted by the state government was approved by the Centre in the first half of this year.
Rymbui also informed that an amount of Rs 79 crore as corpus fund to meet exigencies was disbursed by the Meghalaya government to the teachers three months ago.
There are 5,814 lower primary teachers and 6,727 upper primary teachers teaching in 5,166 SSA schools in the state who are yet to receive their salaries from August to December this year.
