Partial release of SSA teachers’ dues likely by next week

SHILLONG, July 5: The state government is making efforts to release the pending salaries of the SSA teachers pertaining to the months April and May of 2023 within next week, while the salary for June will be released later.
Informing this here on Wednesday, Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) president Aristotle Rymbai said that he was told by Education Minister Rakkam A Sangma that the State Finance department has also released an amount of Rs 12.44 crore as the first installment for payment of teachers’ arrears for the fiscal 2016-17.
According to Rymbai, the minister also said that sanction order for payment of the arrears has been sent to all districts with instructions to transfer the funds to the personal accounts of all SSA teachers.
It may be recalled that the state government had agreed to clear the eight months’ (from July 1, 2016 to February 28, 2017) pending salaries worth Rs 47 crore of the SSA teachers in four installments starting June this year. This came after a petition was filed by the MSSASA before the High Court of Meghalaya.
In its judgment passed on May 17, the Court disposed of the petition after the state government informed that a formula has been worked out for release of the pending salaries of SSA teachers. “…the state government has agreed to clear the salary pending (amounting to Rs 47 crore) for eight months from July 1, 2016, to February 28, 2017,” Rymbai had said in a statement on May 18.