After 20 years, adhyapaks get govt employee tag

BHOPAL: After 20 years of struggle, state government has finally woken up to the demand of more than 2 lakh contract teachers in schools to recognize them as state government employees.
After Tuesday’s cabinet nod, the contract teachers would be merged with school education department and they will be entitled to benefits of 7th Pay Commission from July 1.

The major concern of these teachers was that they were placed under urban and rural development department department and besides working as teachers, they were entrusted with all non-teaching jobs without receiving any additional remuneration as received by other government employees.

“Chief minister put an end to our 20-year-old plight by giving us the stature of a government employee. Yet, he took away our 20 years of hard work by not considering our experience. We will be treated as new employees and there would be no promotions based on our experience,” said Upendra Kaushal, member, Adyapak Samvarg teachers association.

The good thing about the merger of 2.37 lakh teachers, who were earlier called as varisht adyapak, adyapak into school education department is that their salaries would now go up by at least Rs 5,000-Rs 8,000 per month.
As per the new rule, they will now be called as primary, high school and higher secondary school teachers based on their qualification under school education department.

Speaking to TOI, principal secretary of school education Deepti Gaur Mukherji said, “The important point is that all the 2.37 lakh teachers have now become government employees and the will be entitled to all facilities like TA, HRA, medical allowance and every other benefits a normal government employee gets. It is the biggest thing to happen in 20 years.”