SAD asks Cong govt to regularize services of contractual teachers immediately
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked the Congress government to regularize the services of contractual teachers as per the Congress party’s election eve promises and not try to come out with new discriminatory and anti-human policies aimed at denying them their just benefits.
In a statement here, former education minister and SAD spokesman Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said it was shocking that the Congress government was now running away from the party’s election promise to regularize all contractual teachers after coming to power.
Dr Cheema said more than 15,000 teachers were being asked to work on a basic pay of Rs 10,300 per month for three years in order to get inducted as permanent employees. He said these included teachers recruited under the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), computer teachers, lab attendants, teachers hired for Adarsh Schools as well as Pendu Sahyogi Adhyapak.
The Akali leader said many of these teachers were drawing salaries ranging from Rs 30,000 to Rs 50,000 and had already put in eight to ten years of service as contractual employees. “It is shocking that instead of recognizing their services to the State and offering them pay protection while regularizing their services, the government is asking them to work on a basic pay of Rs 10,300 per month.
Dr Cheema said in case of 5,178 Pendu Sehyogi Adhyapak, the teachers had been working in rural areas under various kinds of hardships for three years at a consolidated pay of Rs 6,000 per month. “Now when the time has come to regularize their services, the government is reneging from its assurance to induct them as permanent employees”.
Demanding immediate regularization of all contractual teachers, the former minister said it was inhuman to ask teachers who had served society for so long to take drastic cuts in their salaries as well as wait for another three years to get regularized. “Moreover most of them have added responsibilities and deserve a pay hike, not a severe cut in their emoluments”, he added.
Telling the contractual teachers that it was with them, Dr Cheema said the SAD would take up this issue in the forthcoming budget session also. -PTC News
