Government's decision to disburse salaries through electronic clearing service to benefit 6.5 lakh teachers in state
In the coming months, the state government has decided to implement Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) system for crediting salaries of all the schoolteachers in the state.u00a0The new payment system will benefit around 6.5 lakh teachers who teach in municipal, zilla parishad (ZP) and private schools that receive aid from the government.u00a0
The two sides: Shridhar Salunke, director of Primary and Secondary State Education and Dipti Chiwate, principal of S D Kataria High school
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Director of Primary and Secondary State Education Dr Shridhar Salunke shared the information yesterday. u00a0“Currently, the education department follows a long manual procedure wherein every school has to send salary bills to governmental body concerned. Then, through treasury, salary gets credited into a teacher’s bank account. This process needs a week for completion. But ECS can easily replace these manual hurdles and all the teachers in state can get their salaries on the first day of every month,” Dr Salunke said.u00a0
At present, several ZP schools are disbursing salaries through co-operative banks. But with the introduction of ECS, the state wants to do credit slaries through a single nationalised bank. u00a0“In rural areas several co-operative banks do not have good records. Some have been caught observing malpractices in districts like Nanded, Dhule, Osmanabad and Nandurbar following which we had shifted salary accounts from these banks,” Dr Salunke said. u00a0Though the government authorities are very much confident about new ECS system, some of the schools authorities seem to be sceptical about it.u00a0
“Till now, we have not received any circular regarding any change in crediting salaries. In ZP for every official reason paperwork is a must. The question is how will the ZP administration adapt itself to the new paperless office approach,” Princiapl of S D Kataria High School Deepti Chivte said.
A schoolteacher, requesting anonymity, said most of her counterparts in the district received salaries through the Pune District Central Cooperative (PDCC) Bank. u00a0“The PDCC is yet to adopted core banking facility. Our school had requested them a lot to do so. But every month the entire teaching and non-teaching staff rushes to a specific PDCC branch to collect salaries,” the teacher said.u00a0
The teacher unions in the district welcomed the state government’s initiative “There was no fix date for crediting salaries. Manual process added unwanted delays. In urban areas making salary through a single bank is difficult. But still I hope that ECS will reduce the overall delay,” President of Nationalist Junior College Association Avinash Takavle said.u00a0Last year, the civic body’s educational board asked all the PMC-run school managements to open salary accounts for their staff in Union Bank, which benefited them.u00a0
“We don’t face any problem in getting our salaries on time. Many of our teachers opened accounts in Union bank. Besides salary, they are getting other facilities including core banking and debit card, among others,” Principal of Shree Sant Dyandev Primary School, Maharshinagar, Lata Gadekar said.u00a0
Did you know?
>> Every year, the state disburses salaries worth Rs 25,000 crore to 6.5 lakhs teachers teaching in Rs. 1.84 lakh state-run schools, including private institutes
>>u00a0u00a0The state pays 20 paise per Rs 100 as commission to cooperative banks for bulk salary transactions
>>u00a0u00a0Introduction of ECS will help the government save on commission, helping it save croresu00a0
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