Saakshar Bharat employees on warpath

Vizianagaram: The staff, who worked at the Centrally sponsored Saakshar Bharat Mission, are struggling to eke out their livelihood as the state government sacked them from service on June 1.

The aim of Saakshar Bharat Mission is to make all literate. For this, the government had launched adult education (Vayojana Vidya) in 1971 and later it was converted into Saakshar Bharat Mission. Village and mandal-level coordinators were appointed to run this programme.

The staff have been working for the past 15 years with less salaries. The motive of the mission is to improve the literacy among the people and even the adults also will be promoted to learn reading and writing through these centres.

Except East Godavari, West Godavari and Krishna district, rest of the 10 districts are brought under this scheme around 82 lakh people are enrolled under this programme in the state.

Village coordinators are being paid Rs 2,000 and mandal-level workers are being paid Rs 6,000 per month. In the state around 18,000 village-level coordinators and 504 mandal-level coordinators are working under the scheme.

But suddenly, they received termination orders from the government on June 1. But the government stated in that orders that it would come into force from March 1. Hence, the staff would get three months salary.

The government has directed the staff to hand over the teaching material like charts, black boards and others to the government but none of them have did it so far and fighting with the government to reinstate them in the service.

They were staging dharnas and submitted memoranda to the Collectors and others, appealing them to protect their jobs and to clear their pending salaries.

K Ramesh, mandal coordinator of Sithanagaram, said: “We have been in the programme for the past 12 years and now suddenly, we are told to quit the jobs. The government is saying that it is providing lakhs of jobs, but it is not happening. Our jobs should be protected. We will fight with the government till we get back our jobs.”

K Sugunakara Rao, deputy director of the Saakshar Bharat Mission, said as of now the present programme was closed. The new programme would be launched by the Union and State governments.

The Union government would bear 60 per cent of expenditure and state governments would bear 40 per cent of budget. The new programme is likely to be launched on September 8. Later, the government will release the guidelines for the appointment of the staff. It may choose the old employees or the state government may intervene and appoint new staff, he said.