AICC secretary and former MLA Ch. Vamshichand Reddy has suggested to the government to categorise the schools and colleges into two groups based on their financial sustainability and grant interest-free loans to them to ensure that they pay salaries to the four lakh teaching and non-teaching staff depended on them.
At a press conference here, he said that these seven lakh employees in the education sector were not paid salaries for the last two months though the government ordered these education establishments to pay the salaries. Since the schools and colleges are also facing financial issues due to COVID-19 the government should support the managements with weak financial platforms through interest free loans with a moratorium of three to six months. The salaries can be deposited directly in the staff’s accounts, he suggested.
He also appealed to the government to release the 2019-2020 tuition fees of inter, degree, PG students, immediately so that the managements wouldn’t face much problem in disbursing their employees salaries. He said the government has been allotting ₹ 500 towards mess fees for 10 months and urged it to extend the same to 12 months, as done by the previous government. He also appreciated the government’s directions to schools to collect tuition fee on monthly basis.
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Mr. Reddy also reminded the Chief Minister of his letter written earlier to immediately release the fee reimbursement dues of 2018-19 and 2019-20 to all the engineering and other technical colleges (polytechnic, pharmacy, MCA, MBA) and mentioned that our neighbouring Andhra Pradesh has paid ₹ 4000 crore clearing all the dues till 31 March 2020.
He also mentioned about the on-going inter exam evaluation where about 20000 lecturers are working in 33 centers, risking their lives under the COVID-19 situation. He said the govt should not only ensure that their salaries are paid on time but also provide health insurance to these valorous teachers who are fighting in the face of danger and performing their duties.