Karnataka - Bangalore

Government teachers go without salaries for up to four months

Bangalore: Opening of new schools and large-scale recruitment of teachers are repeatedly touted as big achievements by the coalition government. What has been understated, however, is the delay in disbursement of salaries to teachers over the last few months, especially new recruits. The reasons being cited for the delay, in some cases by as many as four months, is intriguing. They range from computer glitches and procedural delays, to problems in release of grants.

Sunil Kumar, newly-appointed to a government school in Harohalli, is yet to draw his first salary, though he joined duty in May. When he inquired with the office of the Deputy Director of Public Instruction, he was told that the delay was due to teething problems in the transfer of responsibility from Block Education Officers to Cluster Education Officers in each educational cluster. Ironically, the decision to appoint cluster officers was taken in May this year to decentralise the system and make it more efficient.

Hameed, another new recruit in a government school in a village near Sathanur, was given a completely different explanation on the delay. He was told by the case worker that a four-month delay involving verification and other procedures is “routine”. “He told me that we will anyway get all the money in bulk. But how does one manage without salary for four months? Many are living on borrowed money,” said Mr. Hameed, who travels 80 kilometres between home and workplace every day.

Barring some pockets in the Gulbarga division, this is the fate of many among the newly-appointed teachers across the State, according to Mr. Hameed. Mysore division is a case in point. New recruits in Nanjangud (40), Hunsur (99), T. Narasipura (35) are yet to get their first salaries.

Basavaraj Gurikar, President of the Karnataka State Primary School Teachers’ Association, however, said that the delay was not restricted to new recruits alone.

Salaries of all teachers were delayed by one or two months.

He said it was related to computerisation process of salary disbursement. Human Resource Monitoring Service, being put in place to credit salaries directly to teachers’ account, has hit a roadblock, he said. “We have brought it to the notice of the department and they have assured us that it is not due to allocation problems. It will be sorted out by next week,” he added. Some highly placed sources in the Education Department, however, said that “part of the problem” was also delay in release of grants.

Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Basavaraj S. Horatti admitted that there had been a delay of three months in salary disbursement in some parts of the State. “It was due to a technical snag and I have given directions to set it right,” he said. Commissioner for Publication G. Kumar Naik said that the problem was “restricted to few taluks”. Ninety percent of the cases had been sorted out , he said.

(Names of teachers have been changed.)

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