Shillong, Jan 19: The Meghalaya SSA Schools Association (MSSASA) has announced that it will hold a black flag sit-in and candlelight vigil to protest against the government on January 21st as Meghalaya will celebrate it’s 50th Statehood anniversary.
The SSA teachers have called for this protest as the Government has failed to pay them salaries for the last three months.
Addressing the media, MSSASA president Aristotle Rymbai said that taking into consideration the Covid-19 situation, only 10 SSA association members will take part in the black flag sit-in demonstration that will be held from 12 noon to 1 pm at Khyndailad. The candlelight vigil will follow from 5:30 pm at the same venue.
He informed that, based on a Right to Information (RTI) reply, the Centre released Rs 59.34 crore on November 9 and Rs 73.51 crore on December 22 to Meghalaya for the SSA scheme but that Education Minister Lahkmen Rymbui said that only Rs 52 crore had been sanctioned.
“We are very surprised that the statement made by Rymbui does not match the response we got through the RTI from the Ministry of Education,” Rymbai said.
He also said that the proposal sent by Meghalaya for uniform grant of Rs 600 per student was accepted but a grant of only Rs 300 was implemented.
Furthermore, the composite school grant Meghalaya had sent a proposal for was based on enrolment and received approval but the implementation order was for Rs 10,000 for all SSA schools in the state not as per the enrolment but as per the approval of the project approval board.
He added that the SSA teachers will continue with their ‘non-cooperation’ movement and boycott all government-related non-teaching duties, such as those related to Covid prevention, cleaning drives, etc until their salaries are paid.
Further, the MSSASA president informed that they are preparing to file a case in the High Court concerning the regularization of the SSA teachers.
“The stand of the government is that it is not the responsibility of the state to regularize the service of the SSA teachers but the RTI reply from the Ministry of Education says otherwise,” Rymbai said.
