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60 per cent of high school teachers remain unpaid by Sudipto Mondal

42,000 teachers have not been paid salaries for five to 10 months

Even as the State Government attempts to stave off uncomfortable questions about its financial health, claims are surfacing that thousands of government and aided high school teachers have not been paid their salaries for over five months.

In some cases, teachers of aided high schools have not been paid for nearly a year. A top official attributed part of the problem to the Government’s economy measures.

According to the Karnataka State High School Teachers’ Association, teachers in government-aided high schools have not been paid for nearly a year and also those recruited under the five-year budget plan for the last five months.

Delays

K.K. Manjunath, State organising secretary of the association, told The Hindu that 25,000 aided school teachers and 17,000 government high school teachers had been affected by these delays in payments. “There are 66,000 aided and government high school teachers as per our records. The number affected by this crisis is roughly 42,000 across the State,” he said. Several representations have been made by district units of the association to the respective zilla panchayats in the State.

In response, Secondary Education Secretary G. Nadadur told The Hindu: “Owing to the economy measures adopted by the State Government, we have not been able to pay aided school teachers.” MLC Ganesh Karnik from the teachers’ constituency (Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Shimoga) said that the problems are being faced only by teachers in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts.

But when he was asked about the claims made by the association he said, “I can only talk about my constituency. I do not know about the others.”

However, Mr. Manjunath alleged that there was a concerted attempt by politicians and officials to project the salary delays as affecting a “local” area.

“When a team from Madikeri makes a representation they are told that the problem exists only there. [This stock response] is given to groups from other districts. But the association has evidence that this is a Statewide problem,” he said.

Mr. Karnik said that the problem being faced by teachers in his constituency is because of “administrative lapses”. He said that the problem has been fixed by “re-appropriating” funds from the “non-plan” head to the “budget plan” head of accounts.

‘Wrong projection’

Mr. Nadadur, though, attributed the situation to wrong projection of vacancies. More teachers have been recruited this year than were budgeted for at the beginning of the financial year.

However, a senior zilla panchayat official here said it was not just the new recruits who were facing salary delays. Even those hired under the budget plan four years ago were not getting salaries, the official said.

Reacting to the issue, V.S. Ugrappa, former Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council, said government employees across the State were facing similar problems and claimed that the salary delay was due to shortage of funds.

ITI teachers

“Teachers at the 700 Industrial Training Institutes across the State have not been paid for eight months. Teachers at Morarji Desai Residential Schools too have not been paid,” he added.

Claiming that the Government has failed to meet its financial commitments in the Home, Education, Health and other welfare sectors, he said,

“In the previous financial year, the Government failed to meet its budgeted financial commitments amounting to Rs. 16,000 crore. It has accepted that until end December 2009 there has been a revenue deficit of Rs. 5,000 crore. This is clearly part of a larger pattern of financial ill-health.”