Bihar teachers get salary in bank account and also avail loan

With an aim to do away with delay in payment of salary and harassment of teachers in the hands of panchayat and district boards, the Bihar government, in yet another innovative step, has made the facility for payment to their bank account with additional facility of loan.

All the four lakh panchayat teachers across the state of primary level are now getting their salaries in their bank accounts, state Education minister P K Shahi told PTI.

The same facility has also been extended to 17,000 secondary and 3300 higher schools teachers but there have been some problem in payment of salaries in banks at these two levels because of non-submission of past utilisation certificate there, he said.

"While 50 per cent of the schools at secondary and high school level are giving salaries to teachers directly in banks, in rest half of the schools this has not come so far because of non submission of utilisation certificate made mandatory by Comptroller and Auditor General," he said and exuded confidence it would be resolved soon.

Principal Secretary Education Amarjeet Sinha said many nationalised banks responded positively to the department decision to keep its money in the banks which provide facility to transfer salary to teachers in their accounts.

State Bank of India (SBI) is providing this service in 13 districts. Similarly, Central Bank and Grameen bank have been doing the job in other districts, Sinha added.

Henceforth, the mukhiya will only have the power to report absence of teacher in a school under their panchayat but have no monetary control over them, the minister said.

Shahi said the CAG has agreed to treat the statement of the bank as utilisation certificate which would end the problem of running after mukhiya or district board office bearers for the same.

Besides, getting salary on time, the teachers have additional benefit of getting loan from the banks against their salary account, Sinha said.

PTI