Salary disparity irks TN Samagra Shiksha staff

At present, there are about 26,000 non-teaching staff working in government schools across the State under a consolidated salary fixed by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD).

Accordingly, the maximum salary for non-teaching staff in TN was fixed at Rs 16,000 per month compared to their counterparts in Rajasthan, who get Rs 63,000 per month. Adding to the woes, the non-teaching staff at the block level in rural areas in TN get only Rs 10,000 per month against the fixed consolidated salary of Rs 16,000.

Samagra Shiksha scheme, implemented at a cost Rs 3,700 crore every year, aims to provide useful and relevant elementary education to children in the age-group of 6 to 14. Apart from regular staff in the central scheme, a total of 27,379 employees including teaching and non-teaching staff work under consolidated pay at district and block level in State-run schools.

As per the data given from Samagra Shiksha sources, there were disparity in the salary allocations for the staff working for consolidated pay across the country. The data further revealed that staff in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Karnataka earn higher than salaries employees working from TN. With Rajasthan staff earn Rs 63,250 per month, employees in Punjab, Harayana and Maharastra get pay of more than Rs 30,000 per month respectively.

Meanwhile, block level staff of Samgra Shiksha, Vinoth Kumar, who is spearheading a team demanding justice from the government, claimed that his members get only part salary of just about Rs 10,000 every month from the actual Rs 16,000 fixed by the Centre. “A total of 1,512 staff from block level get less salary,” he claimed adding that the State government should investigate the issue and distribute the salary, which was fixed by the Centre.