Vijayapura: It has been over three months of the government assuring to grant financial assistance to the teaching and non-teaching staff of unaided schools in the State.
The government had said that it will offer Rs. 5,000 to the teaching and non-teaching staff who have lost their earning because of the lockdown and Covid pandemic.
The announcement was made by Former Chief Minister B. S Yediyurappa who had promised, in the first week of June, Covid relief package of Rs. 5,000 for private school teachers along with similar relief for other sections like unorganized labour sector, whose livelihoods have been impacted due to the lockdown.
It has been over 100 days since the State government has announced the relief package but the private school teaching and non-teaching staff are yet to receive the relief amount.
According to the Department of Public Instructions (DPI), “A total of 4,629 teachers have applied for the Covid relief package. Among them only 3,074 teachers’ bank accounts have been linked to Aadhar, verification of around 1,555 teachers’ is still pending and 34 applications have been rejected by Block Education Officer (BEO). Among the applied 2,513 applications have been approved to claim the relief package. The teachers from all the seven talukas have applied in the region.”
Rajendra Biradar, a private school teacher said, “the school, where I am employed, had applied to claim the relief package almost one and half month ago. However, not even a single penny has been received from the authorities concerned till date. The government had announced the relief package after many teachers and their associations staged protests.”
“Since the pandemic, the life of teachers has been paralysed as the majority of the school administrations have either refused to pay wages or cut the wages by around 50 percent. Life has been so bad that many teachers have led their lives on the earnings or pension of their parents. Teachers are breathing easy only from the past two months as schools have been reopened and school administrations are paying full wages. The government has to pay the relief packages at the earliest to the beneficiaries,” urged teacher Biradar.
It is not just the story of Rajendra Biradar but of all the private school teachers in the district. According to sources, among the total beneficiaries, less than 5 percent teachers have received the Covid relief package in the district. Meanwhile, the teachers working in Dharwad, Bengaluru and in many other districts have received the Covid relief package.
Narayanappa V. Hosur, Deputy Director of DPI, said that the process is being delayed because of technical issues and as the teachers are not submitting relevant documents to claim the relief package. “The government has given authority to BEO to approve the applications received from the teachers. The amount is being credited to those teachers that have submitted the proper documents and in few cases the application has been rejected for producing irrelevant documents. We are pacing up with work in order to credit the relief amount directly to the bank’s accounts of teachers,” he said.
Meanwhile, few schools are disappointing at the government for announcing only Rs. 5,000 Covid relief amount and hence some have not even applied to claim the relief amount in the district, claimed sources.
