Shillong, Aug 19: The Meghalaya Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Schools Association (MSSASA) on Monday said it is not ready to compromise with the rights of the SSA teachers.

“Whether it is with the state government or whether it is with the non-teaching staff, we (MSSASA) are not ready to compromise as far as the SSA teachers’ rights are concerned. We will continue to demand for our rights come what may,” MSSASA president, Aristotle C Rymbai, told reporters.

His statement came following the non-release of the salary for the month of July to over 12,000 SSA teachers due to the ongoing indefinite sit-in-demonstration by the non-teaching staff for the past 20 days.

The non-teaching staff have been demanding 80% salary enhancement.

“There are associations, which claimed themselves to be representing the SSA teachers, who are saying that it is okay if one month salary is delayed since in the past they could wait on 4-5 months pending salary. However, we want to clarify here is that the MSSASA during those times did not sit idle on the issue. In fact in July 2022, we had staged a massive protest following which the state government had invited us for talks and agreed to find out ways and means to ensure regular release of SSA teachers’ salary. Due to this, we are now getting regular salary. Therefore, we thank the MDA-2 government under leadership of Conrad K Sangma and education minister Rakkam K Sangma for streamlining the entire process thereby ensuring the regular release of salary to our SSA teachers,” Rymbai said.

He informed that on August 6, the delegation of the MSSASA met and submitted a letter to the State Project Director (SPD), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Swapnil Tembe, for his intervention to ensure the immediate release of July’s salary to the SSA teachers.

“We were shocked and surprised to know that the state government had already sanctioned the fund for the release of the salary but the delay was due to the ongoing protest of the non-teaching staff,” Rymbai said.

Stating that the MSSASA is not against the protest of the non-teaching staff, he however said, “Though they have every right to protest as per Article 19 of the Constitution of India but their protest has affected the rights of the SSA teachers to a great extent by depriving them of their salary. Accordingly, the non-teaching staff have violated the Article 21 and Article 300 A of the Constitution, which clearly states that nobody can violate the rights of other people.”

He said in view of this, the association has demanded the state government to find out ways and means to solve the matter and ensure the immediate release of the salary of the SSA teachers for the month of July.

“I am happy to inform you that the SPD has informed the association that his office has taken up measures to release the salary of the SSA teachers within this week,” Rymbai added.

Last week, Tembe had informed that steps were being taken to resolve the issue of pending salary to SSA teachers. He said personnel from other verticals were being identified to carry out the release of salaries through PFMS.

He had however warned, “But this would eventually delay the utilization of the first instalment received without which the next instalments will not be released by the Govt of India.”

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