After overnight dharna, FinMin announces release of salary grants for aided schools

The teachers of unaided schools of Punjab, who have been protesting outside the Tarn Taran Deputy Commissioner’s office since November 7, have announced to call off their dharna. This decision comes after Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Mundian met teachers for the second time in a span of 24 hours to announce that their demand for a complete salary disbursal for the past nine months was accepted by the state government.

Mundian said salaries would be disbursed on Monday (November 10) in bank account of teachers. Around 1,700 teachers from aided schools of Punjab had been protesting against the delay in salary release. On November 7, teachers including women, sat on an overnight dharna in front of the DC office in Tarn Taran after their attempt to give mass arrests was not successful.

“It is a big achievement for our teachers, who have been struggling financially without their salaries since almost a year. The aided school managements and teachers have been running from pillar to post, meeting ministers and officials to get their dues. Now, that we were forced to come out on streets, the state government finally realised our sufferings,” said Gurmeet Singh Madnipur, the state president of the Aided School Teachers Union.

Madnipur said Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, who was at the Circuit House here, assured and notified that his department would immediately release salary grants for the aided schools. He said, “We also discussed if grants cannot be released on time, then teachers will be merged into the Education Department and government schools.”

There are 1,700 in service employees of 416 aided schools across the state. Madnipur said some were legacy schools, running before the Independence. “There were 512 aided schools, but now their number had reduced to 416 as some were closed due to financial distress. As many as 8,100 teaching and non-teaching posts are vacant in these schools which are dependent on grant-in aide scheme of the state government,” said Madnipur.