Editor,
I am a teacher working in a Deficit school and I would like to voice my grievances against the Government for its apathy towards Deficit L.P. and U.P. school teachers. We are yet to be paid our salaries from Dec 2012. Most of us are parents who depend solely on our salaries to feed our families, and we are facing acute problems in paying the admission fees of our children as admission has been going on since February 2013. It has also become a customary habit to be paid our salaries only till November every year, while salary for December is kept pending for the following year. This has been happening since 2010. To be precise we, the teachers are getting our salaries quarterly i.e. three times only in a year.
Education minister R.C. Laloo does not know the ground reality when he said that Utilisation Certificates (UCs) of Deficit schools are not submitted in time. This statement is totally baseless. The office of the District School Education never accepts our salary statements without the UC. In fact, we are even made to submit the UC’s of the monthly salaries that we are yet to receive; which means that we have always been submitting our UC’s much in advance of our monthly salaries which we have not even drawn yet.
Everyone talks about quality education, but a teacher cannot work efficiently when he/she is always disgruntled and miserable. There is no quality in a teacher’s life. That has to be remedied first. When will the Government acknowledge our plight? We are not allowed to agitate or protest; are we to suffer silently? Or are we to resort to some side business in order to fill our stomachs at the cost of our teaching careers?
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request
Clean campus, clean minds
Editor,
On March 15 last the NSS, NEHU Unit and the NEHUSU organized a cleaning drive. Most students concerned about the cleanliness of the University and the surrounding areas were all hyped for the day. As the day approached many eager students came out with brooms in hand, pails of water, scrubbers and other necessary materials to do the honors. Lots of students, teachers and other faculty members including the NEHUSU and NSS members came forward as well. The University seemed “Cleaned” in a matter of hours! What a sight to behold!.
However, when you closely inspect the campus you will still see plastic bottles, wrappers, trash thrown indiscriminately everywhere especially by the side of the hostels, the main entrance and the pond in front of Gate 2. A closer look will reveal that the pond that just last year had a huge shoal of fishes as its permanent residents now houses soft drink bottles not to mention the ever so popular “plastic bags”. I applaud the NSS and NEHUSU that made the cleaning drive a possibility by asking the students to come out of their classrooms to contribute to the environment, but a one off drive won’t do! A regular cleaning of the whole campus including hostels, classrooms, the administrative block etc. must be initiated if we want the University to be “Green”. Encouragement of civic Sense in the students and faculty alike, asking them to do their bit in their day to day activities in and around the classroom will also help. With a Clean Environment comes a healthy mind; with a healthy mind comes concentration; with concentration comes good grades. As of now, NEHU sports a dirty environment for the studious Mind. Let’s make this a campus not only worthy of producing great minds but also a campus set out to be the cleanest.
Yours etc.,
Oliver Lyngdoh,
Via email
Who decides to put speed breakers?
Editor
I wish to express my disappointment about the improper way of setting-up speed breakers in most part of the city but especially in areas around Pohkseh, Lumshngain, Dum-Dum, Umpling to cite a few examples. These should be termed as “FULL STOPPAGE” for they are not meant for slowing down speeding vehicles but to bring them to a complete halt. This has caused much inconvenience to those travelling in passenger cars, especially ladies. Taxi drivers will not slam the brake of their taxis, to slow-down the vehicle but do it suddenly and which sometimes caused injuries, even mis-carriage of expecting mothers. For sane drivers and vehicle owners, their vehicles tends to consume more fuel to bring it to a full stop at these speed breakers, which considering the size of vehicle population in Shillong, lots ‘petrol’ is wasted. This enhances the already strained Foreign Exchange burdened Central Govt. to buy dollars for oil. According to the PWD rules the speed-breaker should be of the size of 6 (six) metres breadth and not less than that.
Through your esteemed daily I wish to draw the attention of the PWD and sincerely hope they are listening and take immediate steps to address this issue to save precious life and help the country to reduce the oil pool deficit which I think, runs to the tune of 28 to 30 thousand crore of rupees.
Yours etc.,
Augustine Pyngrope,
Via email