The All Garo Hills SSA School Teachers’ Association (AGHSSASTA) today lambasted the state government because their promised two months’ salary arrears have yet to be paid.
SSA teachers have remained unpaid this year with no salary being provided to them for the past three months. The teachers had earlier demanded that their salaries be cleared prior to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council (GHADC) elections on Monday.
“We were informed that our two months’ salaries have been credited to the district education authorities. However, this is false. How can the district authorities transfer SSA teachers’ salary to the school SMC account if the state government did not credit the amount?” asked the teachers through a press release today. “We should have been given our salaries as the central government has already sanctioned the required amount before the end of financial year of 2020-21.”
The teachers further expressed anguish after some of the SSA teachers were served show cause notices on account of not being able to attend election training programmes for the GHADC election.
“Most of the teachers are from remote areas whereas election training programmes are conducted in urban areas. Teachers are financially handicapped and unable to attend the training programme without salary. This is the fault of the state government that some of us were unable to attend,” AGHSSASTA added.
The teachers have now demanded that the NPP led government revoke the un-credited disbursement order while adding that this was the first time such an act has been done by the state authorities.
“This is unfair, unacceptable and we are very unhappy on the issue. We strongly oppose the issuance of an un-credited order. We had said earlier that if the government fails to clear our salaries before the GHADC election we would agitate. We will start our agitation tomorrow at the Secretariat in Shillong and the CMO (Chief Minister’s Office) in Tura, Dakopgre,” they added.
