The State government has passed orders asking schoolteachers to return 16 days’ leave surrender money they received for participating in census-related work in April-May 2010.
More than 1.5 lakh teachers will now have to pay back half a month’s salary to the government. The teachers were paid leave surrender money for 24 days on the assumption that they had worked for 48 days. Now the government — on the basis of an order issued by the General Administration Department — has determined that the number of census-related working days was only 16 and that only eight days’ surrender money can be claimed. The order follows a Cabinet decision to this effect.
Crying ‘foul,’ teachers’ organisations on Tuesday pointed out that the General Administration Department order for non-teaching staff cannot be made applicable to teachers. “What is applicable to teachers is Rule 12 of the KSR [Kerala Service Rules] and not Rule 81 as is the case with non-teaching staff. The number of days we worked has been certified by the tahsildar concerned. How can the government now say that we have worked only for 16 days? This is gross injustice and the decision should be reversed,” J. Sasi, State president of the pro-Congress Government School Teachers’ Union, told The Hindu .
General secretary of the pro-CPI(M) Kerala School Teachers’ Association M. Shajahan told The Hindu that it was the Finance Department and the Finance Minister K.M. Mani who had objected to the quantum of surrender money given to the teachers. “When we met him on this issue, he told us that the government does not have money to give this much amount of surrender money to teachers,” he said.
Former Education Secretary M. Shivshankar had reportedly written a detailed note, on the file pertaining to the issue, arguing that teachers should not be equated with non-teaching staff on the question of leave surrender and that they should be given money commensurate with the number of duty days as certified by the tahsildar concerned.
Sources in the Education Department said that there was immense pressure from teachers’ organisations to take this issue to the Cabinet again and get the decision reversed.
