Srinagar, May 14: After taking up the issue of releasing salaries to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers, with the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), the state government Thursday said it will release their pending salaries soon.
Education Minister Nayeem Ahktar said that the funds were not available with the state government. “But now the state government has taken up the issue with the Government of India and we have been assured that the funds will be released soon,” he said and added that the payment of the salaries to the SSA teachers will be streamlined within next few days.
The development came after the MHRD gave positive response to release its state share for SSA to clear the liabilities pending from past few months.
Meanwhile, officials in the Education department admitted that SSA teachers in some districts didn’t get their salaries for past five months saying the funds from both, MHRD and state government were not released due to some departmental issues.
“We had some liabilities pending with the department due to delayed funding, however, the matter will be resolved as soon as possible,” they said.
Salary under the SSA scheme is shared between the Central government (65 per cent) and the state government (35 per cent).
As the state government had been on the edge of a financial meltdown for long, there have been many occasions when teachers did not get their salaries on time, but this is the first time that there has been a four-month delay in disbursing salaries, said one of the SSA teacher.