‘More 45 days for committee to resolve grievances of SSA teachers’

Srinagar, May 31 : The state government Thursday said that it has increased the time given for a high level committee constituted earlier for resolving the grievances of ReT teachers recruited under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme in the school education department.
The government also claimed that high level delegation is visiting New Delhi on 5th June to meet the union Human Resources Minister (HRD) for resolving the issue of salary and ensuring the release of 400 crores lying pending with the government of India.
“There is no immediate solution to the problems of SSA teachers. We should understand that it is an 18 year old problem. But yes the government is working on it and have already constituted a high level committee to resolve the issue permanently,” Minister for School Education, Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali told KNS over phone.
The minister said that the high level committee headed by the Minister of the state earlier was told to submit the report within 15 days, however they have requested for the more 45 days time. “Now we have given them 45 days to come up with the comprehensive report so that the issue of SSA teachers can be resolved,” the minister maintained.
Zulfkar further said that as far as the salary component is concerned, he along with a high level delegation is visiting Delhi on 5th June to meet the HRD minister. “We will raise the various issues besides the salary issue of SSA teachers with the Union Human Resource Development Minister. I am hopeful that 400 coreos lying pending with the government of India will also be released by the central government,” the minister said.
“This is a problem related to around 41 thousand youth who are working hard under this scheme. I am hopeful that soon we will come out with the solution to resolve all the problems,” the minister told KNS.
However the minister claimed that they have already released salary for month of April 2018 and that there is only one moth salary pending. “We have released the salary of April to SSA teachers. Only a single previous month is pending. I am hopeful that it will be also released,” he maintained.
The Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) teachers recruited under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan are on a warpath with the government over frequent delay in the release of their monthly salaries. The process for release of monthly salary of SSA teachers is unsettled now for many years with the result it has often led to face-off between the teachers and the school education authorities.
Education minister added that he assure the teachers and other workforce in the education department that there will be no such problems in future. “I expect them to give in their best to transform the education sector in the State so that our schools turn out to be institutions of excellence in academics,”
It is to mention here that last week the J&K government ordered constitution of a high-level committee of top officials to resolve the grievances of ReT teachers recruited under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme in the school education department.
“A committee has been constituted to come with a workable solution in order to resolve the grievances of teachers,” education minister Choudhary Zulfkar Ali had said, adding that the committee will submit its report to the government in 15 days and future course of action will be taken accordingly.
The minister had said that the committee is headed by minister of state (MoS) for education while secretary school education, F A Shah, special secretary education department, director school education Kashmir and Jammu division, state project director SSA and RMSA will be its members.
The SSA teachers staged valley wide protests against government for its failure to release their monthly salaries on time. According to teachers, they have not been paid three month salary by the department.
However the J&K ReT teachers’ forum had opposed the constitution of new committee by the government saying that the government should instead implement its previous commitments made in the house of state Legislative Assembly.  KNS