Bhaderwah, 02-Apr: All Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh Teachers Federation aft. with Akhil Bharatyia Rashtaryia Shakshik Mahasangh today demanded removal of “huge pay anomaly of teachers and masters and other employees in Jammu Kashmir”.JKUT President and National Auditor ABRSM, Devraj Thakur in a statement issued to CNS said that their counterparts in rest of the Indian union territories are “far ahead than them in terms of Grade Pay and other service benefits”. He claimed that teachers in all other Union Territories of India are placed in Grade Pays between 4200 to 5000. While as, here in Jammu and Kashmir, the same teacher is placed in Grade Pay of just 2800 with a huge difference and discrimination.Thakur alleged that they were being discriminated upon by the government by not addressing the “huge pay anomaly between several cadres in and outside the department”.Thakur added that “Unlike many other government departments, the Education department is completely human-centric and its effectiveness significantly rests upon the talent and motivation of the huge workforce of its teachers. However, teachers have often faced career-related issues especially in terms of pay and promotion. These issues undermine their socio-economic standing, often giving rise to serious self-esteem issues and severely affecting their work-related motivation”.Thakur said that on 5th August 2019, with the declaration of the State of Jammu & Kashmir as the Union Territory of India, they were hopeful that the employees of the Union territory of J&K will get all the benefits of all the allowances and the pay at par with their counterparts in centre and other union territories , however nothing concrete has been done in this regard yet.The teachers of the J &K Union Territory has suffered a lot previously, even though the then state fixed the pay anomaly of major departments over a period of time, the pay anomaly which the teachers of J&K UT suffer has been left unattended he alleged.Thakur said that before the 6th Pay Commission, the Masters in School Education Department, after their hard fought efforts, were getting salaries equal to the AAOs and SOs. In the 6th Pay Commission, Pay grade the teachers were paid the Pay Band of Rs 5200-20200 with Grade Pay of Rs. 2800/ which in the revised pay matrix as per seventh Pay Commission was fixed at the Basic Pay of Rs. 29200. Pay grade of masters was fixed as 9300-34800+ GP 4280 whereas the pay Grade of the AAOs and SOs was fixed 9300-34800 + GP 4600. By fixing different pay grades for AAOs/ SOs and the Master, the latter have again been discriminated.
