Gender coordinators denied salary for 2-years despite nod from panel
Official report favours absorption of GC’s in education department
5 Dariya News
15-Nov-2019
The zonal gender coordinators (ZGCs) are made to run from pillar to post to get their monthly wages despite the official report favoring their absorption in the school education department against vacancies in Kasturba Gandhi BalikaVidyale (KGBV)-residential schools.According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), the ZGCs are without their salary for past two years as the department has delayed their absorption in the department despite utilising their services in the department at all education zones.Already, the chief education officers (CEOs) in their recommendations have identified the vacant posts in the KGBV residential schools and recommended the absorption of ZGCs on these vacant posts.At present around 97 ZGCs are working in various zones of the state for which the education department has 159 vacant posts sanctioned in KGBVs. “But the file has been shelved unnecessarily by the administrative department due to which hour salaries continue to remain unpaid,” one of the gender coordinators told KNO.The CEOs in their recommendations have stated that the non-teaching staff doesn’t have the concurrence of the finance department as the creations were made by the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) after establishment of KGBV schools in state.
“It was the decision of the governing body to pay the honorarium to the ZGCs out of the management cost because the government of India had closed down the scheme "NPEGEL" under which these coordinators were appointed,” reads the report accessed by KNO.These female workers were engaged at zonal level by department in 2005 under NPEGEL scheme. The government closed the scheme few years ago, but the report furnished by the directors of Jammu and Kashmir division has termed their services as “satisfactory”.The report was furnished by the directors after assessing the overall performance of the ZGCs and submitted the report to the administrative department. “The then state project director, SSA stopped paying honorarium out of the management cost to the ZGCs on the pretext that the scheme has been closed in the year 2012-13.But we have been continuing our services in the department,” the gender coordinators alleged. As per the official report submitted to administrative department, the total financial implication for the salary of these coordinators is Rs two crore- with a monthly honorarium of Rs 710o to each ZGC.“The honorarium could again be met out of the management cost subject to the approval of governing body,” reads the report. The official report has stated that ZGCs were appointed after following the norms and procedure laid down in the erstwhile NPEGEL scheme under gender component.“There is definite need of rehiring the services of ZGCs and they could be assigned the tasks for identification and enrolment of out of school children, never enrolled and dropout students, especially girl child,” reads the report. Secretary school education department was not available for her comments. (KNO)