The Centre has reportedly not credited a part of the salaries of more than 50,000 teachers in madrassas across 16 states for the last two years, The Times of India reported on Monday.
These madrassas were registered under the government’s Scheme for Providing Quality Education in Madrassas that was started by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2008-’09. Under this scheme, teachers with graduate degrees are entitled to be paid Rs 6,000 per month by the Centre while teachers who have completed their post-graduation are paid Rs 12,000. The rest of their salaries are paid by the respective state governments.
“Across 16 states, teachers have not received the Central government component of their salaries for the second year now,” said Akhil Bharatiya Madrassa Adhunikikaran Shikshak Sangh President Raza Khan. “In some states, they have not been paid for three years.” Khan said that his organisation was planning to organise a protest in Lucknow on January 8.
The registrar of the Uttar Pradesh Madrassa Board, Rahul Gupta, said that of the funds allocated for the scheme, the Centre had not released Rs 296.31 crore in 2016-’17. “In 2017-’18 so far, the funds have not been released either,” he added.
The ministry had provided various reasons for not releasing the funds, The Times of India quoted Halim Khan, the former member of the Central Grant-in-Aid Committee, as saying. The Centre has said that the states have not submitted utilisation certificates and that there is no Unified District Information System for Education code for madrassas.
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