SHILLONG, Nov 17: Chief Minister Conrad Sangma, on Wednesday, informed that the state government is in “discussion mode” with the Centre for release of more funds to pay the arrears of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers.
“We are in discussion mode with government of India to request them to release more funds and as and when those funds will be released we will also release it to the SSA teachers and we will continue to do that in the future,” said the chief minister while speaking to reporters.
Stating that the state government has clarified from the beginning that there is a delay in the release of financial support from the Centre to all the states and not only Meghalaya, Conrad reiterated, “In all the states, SSA teachers have not received their salary, but in the recent past, Meghalaya and few other states have received partial amount while 70 per cent of the states have still not received a single rupee”.
“We understand the problems they are facing but this is a very complex situation where the entire country is suffering right now not just Meghalaya. But let me assure that we will try to find a solution to this and try to help our SSA teachers,” he added.
The central government recently released Rs 59 crore to the state government for disbursing salaries to the SSA teachers, in spite of the government seeking Rs 140 crore to pay the salaries.
Unhappy with the move, SSA teachers have, however, registered their opposition to partial salary release.
With regard to the demand for regularisation of the services of SSA teachers, the chief minister said, “The regularisation aspect is totally different. SSA programme was started by the Government of India in areas where different schools were not present. Therefore, it was a programme completely financed, 90 percent by Government of India, and it cannot be linked to regularisation by the state government”.
He, however, said that if the central government communicates to the state that funding will continue and regularisation will be done by the Government of India in regard to the SSA programme, the state government would move forward.
Stating this, he refrained from giving any commitment with regard to regularization of SSA school teachers.
“From the state government side, if the central government goes for a proposal and moves to regularise them at the national-level then obviously it will be positive,” he continued.a