More than 22,000 government school teachers
working in government schools located in tribal areas have not been paid since
April. About 50 percent of teachers working in government schools in Urban in
the state have not been salary after April.
Teachers express their grief and quote that
they have begged and pleaded with local and state-level officers, but they are
just asked to bear with the ‘budget crunch’.
There are about 1,624
government schools in Indore area, where the struggle of teachers continues.
“I have incurred debts amounting to Rs 10,000
to meet my daily expenses,” a government school teacher requesting anonymity
said. She, like half others in the school, is struggling to make the ends meet,
because the department is not paying salary.
The teacher like many others feared that if
she speaks openly against the government, she will not get paid.
“We
have informed the district administrations, we have written so many letters to
the state government, tribal department and Chief Minister Office. No one has
bothered to even send us a reply,” said Aarif Anjum, President of the Madhya
Pradesh State Teachers’ Association.
He shared that the association members have
been reaching out to officers of education department, but no use. “The
department heads mostly are not even replying and of the record, even blaming
the new state government,” Anjum said.
The local block education officers and
deputy directors had informed teachers that there was some temporary problem
with salary disbursal in the Human Resource Management System. “Then, they
quoted that salary is normally received late in many private organisations, so
15 days over is not much. Now, it is over 22 days for urban-area teachers and
over 3 months for other teachers employed in tribal area,” Anjum said.
State govt not allotting funds, letter
sent by DEO
“We are responsible for distribution of
salary to education department employees including teachers. However, since we
have not received funds from state government, there is nothing we can do. We
have cleared arrears of some teachers with the funds received. After receiving
complaints from teachers, I have even written a letter requesting for funds and
quoting the problem to state education department, Bhopal. We have not received
any reply from there as yet.”
Rajendra Makhwani
District Education Officer
Number of teachers in the State, half of
them not paid
Govt.
Primary School Govt. Upper Primary School
Teacher in Position 1,91,368 74,552