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New Delhi: Citing a report by The Wire, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi during the question hour in Lok Sabha on Thursday, December 2, said that over 50,000 madrasa teachers from 16 states were not receiving their salaries in full for the last five years.
He blamed the Union government for not releasing its share of funds to state governments to run the scheme smoothly. As a result, in states like Uttar Pradesh, madrasa teachers are receiving as low as Rs 3,000 a month, The Wire‘s report had said.
The Hyderabad MP alleged that the government was lackadaisical in its approach with regard to the implementation of the Madrasa Modernisation Scheme under which over 50,000 teachers are employed in 16 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, among others.
The Wire had reported extensively (read here and here) on the problems faced by madrasas and the poor implementation of the Madrasa Modernisation Scheme earlier.
Of the five questions directed at the ministry of minority affairs, which is responsible for the implementation of the Madrasa Modernisation Scheme, Owaisi in a particular question sought to know “whether it is fact that teachers have not got their salaries for the last five years due to not releasing funds of its share by the Centre”.
To this minority affairs minister, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, in a written response said, “In the last five years i.e. 2016-17 to 2020-21, a total of Rs 520.54 crore has been released by the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education to various State Governments…under SPEMM [Scheme for Providing Education for Madarsas/Minorities], which includes honorarium for teachers.”
In response to Naqvi’s reply, Madrasa Modernization Teachers Association President, Ejaz Ahmad, told The Wire that the funds released by the government are inadequate to meet the needs of the madrasas. He said, “Rs 266 crore is the annual requirement only in the state of UP. If we count all the states, then it becomes almost Rs 500-600 crore annually. The ministry has released only one year’s requirement in the past five years.”
Tweeting in Hindi, Owaisi alleged that the minister’s response did not provide a “direct answer to a direct question”.
THREAD: केंद्र सरकार की ‘मदरसा आधुनिकीकरण योजना’ के तहत उ.प्र में 50 हजार शिक्षकों को अब तक तनख़्वाह नहीं मिली है।कई शिक्षकों को उनकी तनख़्वाह का केंद्र सरकार से मिलने वाला हिस्सा 5 साल से नहीं मिला है।सरकार ने 5 साल में उत्तर प्रदेश को कितना पैसा दिया और इस साल कितना देगी? 1/3 pic.twitter.com/UYm6WjpM8X
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) December 2, 2021
Neglect of Madrasa Modernisation Scheme
Nearly 50,000 teachers are currently working with madrasas across 16 states, including Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, among others. The scheme was first launched by the then P.V. Narasimha Rao government in 1994, and subsequently, several measures have been taken up to modernise education imparted by madrasas. In the process, madrasa teachers have protested on a number of occasions against low salaries, irregular disbursement of salaries, delay in the release of funds, among others.
After their concerted efforts, teachers’ salaries were fixed in the range of Rs 12,000 to Rs 15,000 per month depending upon their qualifications and experience by the previous Manmohan Singh government.
According to The Wire‘s earlier report, teachers in states such as Uttar Pradesh are now receiving as low as Rs 3,000 per month, as the Union government has stopped releasing its share of funds to state governments. Whatever the teachers now get is from the state governments. Thousands of teachers have been waiting for years for the release of arrears which run into several lakhs.
Teachers are also caught in a bind as they can neither quit nor can they continue with low salaries. If they quit, they fear that they may not get the arrears at all. Most of the teachers are not permanent employees of the government.
The non-payment of teachers’ salaries has become even more difficult from April this year when the scheme was shifted from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Minority Affairs. While the backlog of salaries is still with the education ministry, the scheme has been shifted to a different ministry.
Many teachers allege that since Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, the situation of madrasas has involved unpaid salaries, reduction in the number of teachers per madrasas and lack of enough funds to upgrade infrastructure.
This story has been updated with a quote of Madrasa Modernization Teachers Association President in response to minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi’s Lok Sabha reply on the salaries of madrasa teachers.