The state unit of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has come out in support of the demands of the SSA non-teaching staff for an 80 percent salary hike.
TMC state youth president Fernandez S Dkhar said today that Meghalaya’s education system ranks among the lowest in the country and it is time for the state government to claim education is its top priority and restore Shillong’s past glory as the capital of education.
“It is quite laughable from a government that claims education is its top priority,” he said. “Our education system ranks among the lowest in the country, just above Bihar, Jharkhand and Nagaland.”
Although the government was willing to raise the non-teaching SSA staff’s salaries by 25 percent, the employees wanted 80 percent and chose to continue with their agitation at Malki Ground here.
Dkhar said that the staff have gone nearly eight years without a payrise, which has been hard to bear with mounting inflation.
Dkhar recalled that when his boss, Dr Mukul Sangma, was Chief Minister (albeit while a member of the Congress Party) SSA staff had their salaries doubled from Rs 3,000 per month to Rs 6,000 “within a few months” of him coming to power in 2010.
Salaries were again raised to Rs 9,900 in 2013 and then Rs 20,493 in 2016.
He said that these increments applied not only to office staff and non-teaching staff but also to over 12,000 SSA lower and upper primary teachers. Similarly, within three months of his tenure, Dr Sangma increased the salary of ad hoc teachers three times in eight years, Dkhar added.
“In contrast, the incumbent CM, Conrad K Sangma, has granted only one increment during his tenure, a 32 percent increase for ad hoc teachers in 2022,” he stated while expressing hope that the government will take action and “not merely make empty promises”.
