As Centre freezes grant, state in a fix over SSA share

Amaninder Pal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 22

As the Union Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD) has not released its share of Rs1,059 crore it had committed under the Sarva Shiskha Abhiyan (SSA) for the current financial year, the state government is likely to foot the salary bill of over 10,000 schoolteachers, working without salaries since October.

As the state and central governments contribute their shares on 60:40 pattern to run all components of the SSA, the MHRD had committed to provide Rs610 crore and the rest had to be contributed by the state.

Sources said the ministry had so far released the first instalment of Rs270 crore in the middle of last year, against which the state had also contributed its first instalment of Rs180 crore.

Since the MHRD didn’t release any grant thereafter, it had subsequently put the state finance authorities guessing as to what amount of grant they should release for the SSA.

“We are waiting for the MHRD to declare the budget it can provide to Punjab. The state has decided to contribute the remaining share to bridge the budget gap. The SSA staff will soon get its salary till February,” said a senior finance officer.

With the grant provided so far, the state education authorities managed to disburse the salary only of August last year and also cleared the salary bill of last two months of the last financial year.

The salary bill of September was borne by the state itself. The monthly salary of all staffers working under the SSA comes around Rs42 crore.