5 th Pay Commission benefits to deficit school, college teachers

A Correspondent

Shillong, June 8: The Meghalaya government on Friday, decided to extend the benefits of the Fifth Pay Commission to the deficit school and college teachers.

“We have decided to extend the pay revision of the Fifth Pay Commission to the deficit school and college teachers with effect from January 1, 2017,” state Education Minister, Lahkmen Rymbui told reporters after a Cabinet meeting.

According to him, the financial implication for extending the benefits of the Commission to the deficit school and college teachers would be around Rs 84 crore annually, while the payment of arrears would cost the state exchequer around Rs 126 crore.

Rymbui also informed that the arrears would be paid in four instalments of 25 percent each and the deficit school and college teachers would be getting their new pay from July.

Replying to a query, he said that as of now, the State Government is spending around Rs 278.39 crore on the salaries of the deficit schools annually. “With the implementation of the new pay, the Government will be spending more than Rs 300 crore plus annually on the salaries,” the Education Minister said. Rymbui also said that the state government is presently spending around 90 percent of its Budget in the education sector only for paying of salaries thereby leaving very less amount for providing infrastructure for schools.

The state Education Minister also informed that there are 136 deficit Upper Primary Schools in the state with 877 teachers while in Lower Primary schools there are 3852 teachers in 1911 schools.

In the 121 deficit secondary schools there are 382 non-teaching staffs, 1981 teachers while in 17 deficit higher secondary section there are 129 teachers and 57 non-teaching staff.

Meanwhile, in the nine deficit pattern secondary schools, there are 85 teachers and 17 non-teaching staff. Moreover in the 15 deficit colleges there are 36 teachers and 245 non-teaching staff.