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Paying revised salary to college teachers won’t be easy for Mamata, say WB officials, Opposition
Days after Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that her government will revise the salary of college and university teachers state officials and opposition leaders said it would be a tough job for state finance department.
Days after Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that her government will revise the salary of college and university teachers from January 2020 and pay them according to the recommendations of seventh Central Pay Commission, state officials and opposition leaders said it would be a tough job for the cash starved state finance department.
On Tuesday, Banerjee announced at a meeting of college and university teachers that part-time teachers too would get ₹5,000 more per month from next year.
The teachers had been demanding Central pay scale with retrospective effect from 2016 and started agitation at different levels but Banerjee announced that there would be only a three per cent hike in arrears calculated from January 2016 to December 2019.
Bengal is among four states that have not implemented Central pay scale for college and university teachers. Even the teacher’s front of the ruling Trinamool Congress had demanded the University Grants Commission pay scale as recommended by the seventh Central Pay Commission. Her announcement did not make the teachers happy.
“As the chief minister mentioned in her speech the state will have to deal with an additional burden of ₹1000 crore because of this pay revision. Since revenue generation cannot grow overnight, we may have to borrow and cut corners. The present debt burden stands at around ₹50,000 crore. It may go up,” a senior bureaucrat said on condition of anonymity.
“The expenditure pattern of the TMC government is horrendous. On one hand we have bridges collapsing due to lack of maintenance and teachers not getting their dues. On the other expenditure on Durga Puja carnival and government festivals are on the rise,” said Communist Party of India (Marxist) Lok Sabha MP from Bengal, Md Salim.
Making things worse for the chief minister, primary school teachers started an agitation in Kolkata from Wednesday night. A few teachers were arrested for blocking roads. Barely two months ago, the same teachers carried out a relay hunger strike.
“I have no problem giving you your dues but from where will I get the money? The Centre has the Reserve Bank. It can print money whenever it wants. I cannot do that,” said Banerjee at Netaji Indoor Stadium, the city’s biggest indoor auditorium, where she had invited all the teachers’ unions on Tuesday.
“The Centre would have borne 50% of the additional financial burden. Since the chief minister is not implementing the pay scale since 2016 we lost that money. We will organise agitation on November 19 and 20 as planned,” said Partha Pratim Roy, general secretary, Jadavpur University Teachers Association.
