Assam: Primary school teachers on strike over wages, 40 lakh students affected

Assam: Primary school teachers on strike over wages, 40 lakh students affected

Nearly 40 lakh students across Assam will be affected as teachers of government primary schools in the state launched a two-day strike on Monday over discrepancy in wages.

The move will come as a blow to students whose studies were affected for several weeks earlier this year as Assam witnessed the worst floods in three decades forcing schools to shut down and many to act as relief camps.

The strike called by Assam State Primary Teachers’ Association (ASPTA), the umbrella organization of nearly 42,000 primary schools will see nearly 116,000 teachers stay away from work.

The teachers are upset with a notification of the state finance department issued in September, which had resulted in non-payment of their salaries as per 7th pay commission recommendations, since August.

As per the notification, graduate teachers who were drawing salaries in the pay scale beginning Rs 8,700 will now be getting scales of non-graduate teachers whose pay scale starts at Rs 6,200.

“We fail to understand how the finance department can take such a decision after paying us in the scale of Rs 8,700 for over 11 years. This has affected lakhs of families,” said Borah.

He said the teachers are aware of the affect the strike will have on students and will resume duties immediately if the government withdraws the notification and start paying them their dues as earlier.

Primary school teachers across Assam had remained away from duty on September 5 this year in protest against Centre’s new pension policy.

Source: HT