Nawanshahr school heads up in arms over pay, protest outside DEO office

Nawanshahr, May 17

Up in arms over the inordinate delay in orders of pay fixation after the completion of a three-year probation period, the headmasters and headmistresses recruited directly through the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) held a dharna in front of the district education office today.

School heads district president Baljit Kumar (GHS Malpur Arkan), Minakshi Bhalla (GHS Sanawa), Naveen Pal Gulati (GHS, Garcha), Sukhwinder Kumar (GHS Sloh), Amanpreet Singh Johar (GHS, Gunachaur), Neelam (GHS, Mazara Kalan) and Sunita Rani (GHS, Takarala) accused successive District Education Officers and the ministerial staff concerned of causing hindrance in clearing their probation period. They also accused them of deliberating delaying the fixation of pay for the past four months by raising unnecessary objections and seeking clarifications.

The protesters said it seems the District Education Officers have no command over the ministerial staff and they are virtually at their mercy. Each time the aggrieved school heads met the District Education Officer (SE) and Deputy Education Officer (SE) to get their long pending genuine work done, they often showed their helplessness by saying that the dealing clerk had not been taking their calls.

“The DEO and Deputy DEO, instead of demanding an explanation from the dealing clerk, have often asked us to call up the clerk on our own and persuade the clerk to get the work done,” rued a school head. He added that even though they had offered to assist the dealing clerk in completing the work of pay fixation, the district officials and the ministerial staff kept dilly-dallying.

Minakshi Bhalla, headmistress, said that she had to run from pillar to post to get her probation period cleared. She said that she had made complaints of mental harassment and financial loss due to inordinate delay to the CM, the Education Minister and the Education Secretary, but no action has been taken so far.

“About 20 districts in Punjab have cleared the probation period and done the pay fixation,” she noted, while adding that the DEO office Nawanshahr had been delaying the matter for the past four months.

The school heads also interacted with the Deputy DEO (SE), Rajesh Kumar, who assured them that the work would be completed.

It was learnt that the pay fixation orders were ready by 4 pm today, but since District Education Officer (SE) Jarnail Singh was on leave, the order could not be released.