SHILLONG, July 15: Meghalaya Pradesh Trinamool Congress leader Mukul Sangma on Friday slammed Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma for his “rhetoric” surrounding the Education department.
He said the CM bragged about the state government giving the highest budget to the department but it, in reality, created a mess as evident from the teachers hitting the streets to demonstrate their frustration.
Mukul said there is a vast difference between the budgetary allocation and the money actually given.
“As CM why do you have to be so arrogant to say you are doing this and that? Let’s be humble and be connected to the ground reality,” Mukul said.
Talking about the employees of other departments, he said, “Ask them if they had received their salary of April this year on time. Did they receive it in the first week, second week or in the first fortnight?”
The MPTC leader said these are “warning signals” and “serious signals”, reflective of the mess the government is in.
Stressing that people should take a conscious decision in the interest of the state, he said, “If the government is unable to pay the wages, what can be more painful than that.”
“If the government has stopped releasing even the entitlements under the Chief Minister’s Social Assistance to the single mothers, people with disabilities, the priority of the leaders in the current dispensation is definitely misdirected. That is a concern for everybody,” Mukul said.
He viewed as “alarm bells” the aggrieved groups of employees being allegedly compelled to demonstrate their frustration. He claimed it has come to his notice that hundreds of crores of rupees are going somewhere. He said he is doing his study and once it is completed, the details will be shared.
Mukul said every government in the past had hiked the salaries of teachers despite financial constraints.
“It (fund crunch) has always been there and it will always be there, whether it is in Meghalaya or any other state, but we have to look at the issue of justice for the people who are vested with important responsibilities,” the MPTC leader said.
He said while the Congress was in power for eight years, it had hiked the salaries of the teachers by 100% after it considered the same as insufficient.
Mukul also hit out at Conrad for categorising schools appointing ad hoc teachers as private schools.
“The CM has to do much more exhaustive homework to avoid such mistakes. They are called government-aided schools, established by the communities, and not private,” Mukul said.
“This tells us about their casual approach in dealing with the problems of various departments. This is contrary to the rhetoric spoken about and referred to by many people that education will be the number one priority of this government,” he added.
