100 % salary enhancement for 7000 teachers approved

Meghalaya cabinet today approved 100 percent salary enhancement for over 7000 teachers in government-aided schools with retrospective effect from January 1, 2017.
"We have approved the proposal of the Directorate of School Education and Literacy for enhancement of the grant-in-aid to the school managing committees to increase the salaries of the different categories of teachers by 100 per cent," Chief Minister Mukul Sangma told reporters after chairing the cabinet meeting.
The different categories of teachers include 2450 lower primary teachers, 2532 upper primary teachers and 844 Hindi teachers.
"This will be effective from January 1, 2017," Sangma said and added that around Rs 63.34 crore would be spent for implementing the proposed enhanced grant-in-aid for increasing the teachers' salary.

Earlier, the state government had enhanced the salary of secondary and higher secondary adhoc school teachers resulting in agitation by teachers of government-aided schools.
According to Sangma today's decision was a culmination of the assurance made in the budget session of the assembly.

The decision to increase the salaries of the teachers in government-aided schools was taken despite the challenge of availability of funds. "This was because the state government wants to ensure that the salary is good enough for the teachers as a mark of acknowledgement of their hard work," the chief minister said.
He also asked the various school managing committees to ensure that the grant-in-aid is exclusively utilized for the salary expenditure.

Meanwhile, the cabinet has also approved the proposal for enactment of the Anatomy Act in the state in which unclaimed bodies will be given to hospitals for dissections, according to state Health Minister Roshan Warjri.
The Act will be introduced in the next session of the Assembly, she added.