Dimapur, March 2 (EMN): ACAUT Nagaland has termed it ‘sickening’ when teachers under SSA, RMSA and the Hindi teachers were not paid for 9 months at a stretch on the excuse that the State doesn’t have enough funds to give the 10% State share.
As pointed out in its earlier press release that the 14th Finance Commission had released Rs 5229.56 crore (2015-17) to the Finance Department, more than enough to pay the combined salaries of SSA, RMSA, and Hindi teachers 100 times over, ACAUT argued that the State had enough money to deposit 10% State share for the salary components. It said the 10% State share for SSA and RMSA programme cannot be more than 20-30 crores per financial year.
On the amount of Rs 1353.52 crore released by the Central government by way of Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) during the financial year 2015-16, ACAUT ridiculed that the State government had no problem in releasing 10% of the State’s share for the 142 CSS/projects and got the amount released since most of the schemes or projects did not require release of funds directly to the grass roots or beneficiaries.
It alleged that most of these released CSS funds were meant for the pockets of the politicians and bureaucrats.
ACAUT questioned the Finance Commissioner as to why Hindi teachers were victimised for 9 months when their salary funding pattern is 100% CSS? It also demanded the Finance Commissioner to explain why 2015-16 witnessed maximum teacher’s agitation despite the fact that the HRD had released Rs 140.65 crores for the SSA and RMSA programmes during 2015-16?
It said Naga people would be grateful as well if the Finance Commissioner could also clarify on the allegation that the Finance department deducted an illegal 10% commission on every developmental fund released to the various departments taking advantage of the fact that all CSS amount is parked with the Finance Department.
Taking into consideration of the aforesaid circumstances, ACAUT concluded that CSS & projects have not benefitted the grassroots except the elites.
