GUWAHATI: Lower primary government teachers in Guwahati as well as Assam are unhappy with the government’s decision to revise their pay scale.
The state education department had set up a committee called the Anomaly Committee on May 18 last year under the chairmanship of retired IAS officer PK Datta which recently submitted its recommendations to the government.
It was constituted to check for anomalies in the recommendations of the 7th Assam Pay and Productivity Pay Committee and suggest the government with the required measures, informed authorities. State finance minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, recently informed that the government had accepted the recommendations of the committee and has decided to implement them from this year onwards.
Mentioning its recommendation for the pay scale of lower primary teachers, the Anomaly Committee suggested that trained graduate teachers should be paid Rs 7,400. On the other hand, the teachers who are trained but undergraduates or graduate teachers who are untrained would receive Rs 6,800.
Additionally, undergraduate teachers who are untrained will receive a monthly remuneration of Rs 6,200, said officials.
This change in pay scale did not go down well with government teachers across the state and they started their protests after the finance minister announced the government’s decision to accept the recommendations made by the Committee.
Sarma announced during a press conference that apart from the suggestions on teachers’ pay scale, the government had also accepted the Committee’s suggestion to pay government employees posted in Guwahati a house rent allowance (HRA) of 10 per cent of their pay.
Further, employees posted in district or sub-divisional headquarters would receive HRA at the rate of eight per cent of their pay while employees who are posted in other places will get an HRA at the rate of seven per cent of their pay.
“A fixed special allowance has been introduced for people working in hill areas and remote areas,” announced Sarma.
This apart, now teachers who are involved in teaching differently-abled students who are hearing and speech impaired, will be eligible to receive special teaching allowances.
Opposition to the new pay scale
Members of the All Assam Lower Primary Teachers’ Association (AALPTA) recently held state-wide protests against the government’s decision to accept the committee’s recommendations.
They say that the new pay scale is significantly lower than Rs 8,700 which is the remuneration that the lower primary teachers are currently receiving according to the 7th Pay Committee’s recommendations.
Talking to G Plus, general secretary of the AALPTA, Ratul Chandra Goswami, said that the decision to adopt the new pay scale as per the recommendations will be unfair to the teachers who are currently receiving a higher remuneration.
“The cabinet had decided on the current pay scale and the governor had signed off on it, but now the government has suddenly decided to change it. This will affect thousands of teachers across the state,” said Goswami.
He added that the teachers have been receiving Rs 8,700 as salary for the past 17 months.
Lower primary teachers have submitted a memorandum of their demands to the education department and are planning a wide-spread agitation if their demands remain unfulfilled, they informed.
They had also locked down all district-level government education offices on June 18 in protest of the same.
Another member of the teachers’ association informed that they held a meeting with the education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya and requesting him to look into the matter.
“He asked us to give him some time and said that he will consult the chief minister as well as the finance minister on the matter,” said another member of AALPT.
However, the teachers have planned to go on an indefinite strike if a favourable decision is not taken by the government with respect to their pay scale.
“We respect the government’s decision and hope that they will keep our interests in mind,” said Goswami.
There are close to 1,200 schools and 5,000 teachers in the Guwahati sub-division who will be affected by the government’s decision.
Teachers informed that apart from their demands regarding the pay scale, they have also requested the government to provide more number of books for technical evaluation.
“At present, there are not enough books when compared to the total number of students,” said a primary teacher.