J&K admin to give one-time financial aid to private school teachers

Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Friday decided to provide one-time financial assistance to private school teachers who have been impacted due to coronavirus enforced lockdown. The funds will be provided out of the State Disaster Relief Fund.

The move comes two weeks after the private school teachers’ body wrote to J&K Lieutenant Governor G C Murmu requesting financial assistance. The administration has directed the J&K education department to prepare a list of teachers requiring financial aid.

An order issued by the administration stated that the assistance may be provided on details of the fee charged by such schools. The order further stated that the detailed information in this regard shall reach the department within a weeks’ time.

The letter submitted to the L-G by Kashmir private schools association president G N Var reads “Schools have been badly hit since August 5 after the abrogation of Article 370 and in the present circumstances most schools are on the verge of shutting down due to financial crunch resulting in irreparable loss to the society at large”.

Var said that 65,000 teachers and the allied staff were currently affected in J&K. “There are no regular salaries for all the teachers. Only a few schools are paying wages to their staff while the remaining are suffering,” he said adding that the administration must also consider the non-teaching staff for relief.

The education department had last week urged all private schools to defer fee collections from students in view of nationwide lockdown.

Requesting anonymity, a principal from a private school in the city said that he took a loan of ₹70 lakh to pay the salaries of the teaching staff.

“I have not received my salary since the lockdown was enforced. I am unable to feed my family as all my savings have exhausted,” said a private school teacher from Srinagar.

However, the administration has decided to provide one-time financial aid to teachers after the L-G held a review meeting with the officials of the education department recently.

Principal secretary to the government (higher education department) Asgar Hassan Samoon said, “We may provide funds to the needy teachers from L-G or labour funds.”

HT