Over 40,000 Karnataka teachers not paid for past three months

BENGALURU: Around 40,000 government primary and high school teachers across the state, including those under Sarva Shiskha Abhiyan (SSA), have not received their salaries for the past three months. This has landed many of them in financial crises.
According to BJP MLC Arun Shahapur, who represents teacher's constituency in the Legislative Council, the number of teachers who have not received salary could easily be over 40,000.
With the festival season round the corner and household expenditure set to go up, worried teachers are now urging the government to pay their salaries at the earliest. "It's been two months since I received my last salary. I had to borrow from a friend to pay my home loan instalment. Like me, there are hundreds of teachers who are finding it difficult to manage their monthly expenditure due to delay in salary," said Basavaraj, a mathematics teacher at a government high school in Belagavi district.
‘We get paid once in three or four months’
It’s not the first time teachers are being paid late. For the past two or three years, the government has been irregular in disbursing salaries for SSA teachers, a scheme sponsored by the Union human resource department. “We get our salaries once in three or four months. Nobody has bothered to address this issue,” said Rajeev, a primary school teacher appointed under SSA in Hubballi.
While the government disburses salaries to regular teachers through respective zilla and taluk panchayats, SSA teachers get salaries through the SSA state project office.
K G Jagadeesha, commissioner, department of public instruction, says technical glitches, not shortage of funds, are the cause. “The state is moving to Khajane 2 project which seeks to integrate and automate all financial transactions of the government. This is causing the delay,” he said.
He has sought details from all deputy directors of public instruction about status of salary disbursal and reasons for delay. “The problem will be solved soon,” he added.
Under the SSA scheme, the HRD ministry provides Rs 15,000 per unit (per teacher or resource person) every year to Karnataka and the state bears the remaining amount to pay teachers under the scheme in line with regular teachers. Every year, funding changes depending on progress of scheme and new proposals.
“The Centre releases its share in three instalments and it has been irregular. The state refuses to disburse salary until it gets the Centre’s share. But, the teachers are the ones suffering,” said an office-bearer of the teachers’ association.
“ The delay is due to errors in calculating exact amount needed for implementing the scheme. The amount earmarked may not be sufficient and the government has to do some tweaking by cutting expenditure on other counts. This may not have happened to all teachers but around 3,000 of them. SSA teachers should be brought under the general head,”said MT Reju, state project officer, SSA.