Saturday, May 31, 2014

Retention of SSA teachers sanctioned by Project Approval Board

ORDER AT HAND, PROCESS TO ISSUE APPOINTMENT LETTERS BEGINS
GANGTOK, 30 May: A meeting of the Project Approval Board [PAB] of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development held in Guwahati some time back had sanctioned the retention of all the 778 Ad-hoc teachers [teaching and non teaching staff] hired in Sikkim under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan [SSA] for the academic session 2014-15, but the state HRD Department received the official communication regarding this only on Thursday, 29 May.
Speaking to NOW! today, the Principal Secretary, HRDD, Thomas Chandy, informed that the Project Approval Board sanction had not been communicated to the department earlier, but now that the department has received it, the ‘file’ is being processed and has been forwarded to the government for approval.
“As we had not received any news from the Board, we were waiting for the sanction from the Board and now that it has come we have put it up for the approval of the government”, he stated and added that from this year onwards the budget will come under the state plan making the decision-making an implementation quicker.
Following the approval of the government, the ad-hoc teachers working in the various schools in the districts will be given their appointment orders by the respective Joint Directors [JDs], he further informed.
It may be mentioned here that earlier on 24 April, the Principal Secretary, HRDD had stated that the teachers could not be given their appointment orders because of the election code of conduct that came into effect on 05 March in Sikkim. SSA being a Centrally Sponsored Scheme [CSS] under the Ministry of HRD, the Project Approval Board meeting was held on 06 March where it was decided to approach the Election Commission for relaxation to allow issuance of the appointment orders.
“We had tried to take the approval and had also written to the Election Commission but because of the model code of conduct we were advised by the ECI that the HRDD could not be given the approval but could do it after the polls were over in the state,” he had stated at the time.
The affected SSA appointees, it may be recalled, have been distressed by the lack of communication from the Department on their status. [read news report headlined, “Wait continues for SSA staff”, published in NOW! issue dated 30 May 2014 for details]

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