Dimapur, May 5 (MExN): The All Nagaland School Teachers’ Association has set May 11 as a deadline for the govt. in the ongoing tussle over withholding of salary of teachers. Thereafter the teachers have threatened to resort to an “own course of action”.
ANSTA categorically questioned the legitimacy of the decision of the govt. to withhold the salary of teachers for no fault of theirs. The ANSTA in a letter to the Principal Secretary and Finance Commissioner to the state govt. has requested for a reconsideration of the April 27 decision withholding the salary of teachers.
It said the decision was “unreasonable” and accused the department of finance of a “premeditated” action. The decision to withhold the salary of teachers, ANSTA said, was an “anti-teachers” decision. It asserted that the main culprits were the “few DDOs and treasury and sub treasury officers”.
ANSTA said that the decision of the govt. was acceptable to them “so long as the government differentiates verified and unverified establishments in its treatment …because our association is convinced that something has to be done to do away with the messy scene of the department.”
However, ANSTA asserted that it has nothing to do with the “excess appointment, bogus appointment or drawal process in the treasuries” whatsoever. And therefore the teachers questioned “why the entire state teachers should be made to suffer”. ANSTA emphatically stated that the ‘defaulting treasuries’ are to be blamed along with the defaulting DDOs. “How could treasuries pass the bills of those DDOs whose establishments were not verified as per the directive of the government and sub allocation not being granted?” ANSTA questioned.
Reminding the state govt. that ANSTA has been cooperating with the government decision till date, and also admitting the presence of “intolerable irregularities” in the department, it welcomed the “cleansing up process” initiated by the govt. However ANSTA challenged the decision of the govt. “Why should withholding of salary payment of all teachers of state be your priority and the subject of your letter instead of punitive action to be taken against erring DDOs, TOs and STOs?”
The teachers asserted that it has “no share in this act of wrong doing”.
Questioning the decision of the govt., the teachers argued that punitive action must be taken against “wrong doers”. “…the crime cannot be shifted or extended from criminal to innocent as the law does not punish the children for the father’s crime.”
ANSTA made it clear that it stood by the “2006 declaration, that the association is an association of genuine teachers of the state whose umbrella does not cover the bogus and illegal teachers”. The teachers reminded the principal secretary and finance commissioner that the teachers live by “right and reason and not by might and status” and requested for a reconsideration of the decision to withhold the salary of teachers.
The ANSTA letter was appended by its president Kepelhoutuo Chusi, general secretary N Thungchio Shitiri, joint secretary Kekulhouthie and treasurer Ponchulo Wanth.
