A meeting of Rural Development, Finance and Education Department officials will be convened soon to ensure that teachers’ salaries, routed through Panchayat institutions, can be directly paid and on time, said Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Kimmane Ratnakar.
Replying to a question by BJP MLC Ganesh Karnik on Friday, he admitted that there were delays on account of the circuitous route of payment and that it was being set right. MLC Y.A. Narayanaswamy said that there had been salary dues to the tune of Rs. 8 crore over three months in five districts alone.
Library Act
The minister said that a similar problem was being faced by libraries since the library cess is also routed through Pachayat institutions and not directly remitted to the department.
“As a result it has become difficult to even pay for newspapers in some libraries,” he said, adding that only two zilla panchayats had been prompt in remitting the cess amount collected.
