Teacher transfer and rationalisation policy: Khattar flags satisfaction rate, slams Opp

Addressing the media, Khattar said, “Due to COVID-19 pandemic, the process of online transfer of teachers was halted. During this, many teachers retired and many got promoted. Due to this, in some schools, the number of teachers decreased as compared to the student strength while in some schools, the number of teachers was in excess compared to the student strength. Hence rationalisation of teachers as per teacher-student ratio became mandatory. The work of filling up the vacant posts is also going on simultaneously.”

Terming the teacher transfer policy a benchmark for other states, the CM said that the “satisfaction rate of the transferred teachers is over 93-94 per cent through this online transfer policy over the last six years ever since we started it in 2016”.

“When we started the online transfer process again this year, we found that there were 117 government secondary schools that had no teachers and more than 2,000 PGTs were employed in such high schools where classes IX and X had only one or two sections. Therefore, it was decided to rationalise the teachers according to the workload. The posts of teachers are not being abolished,” he said.

Taking a dig at the Opposition for “making noise over the closure of schools”, Khattar said, “During the previous government, 509 primary schools were closed, whereas during our tenure only 179 primary schools and 17 secondary schools have been closed.”

On the issue of “merger of schools”, he clarified, “As per the official data, two senior secondary schools, seven high schools, 294 secondary schools and 4,493 primary schools have been merged. When the IT tool was introduced to check the student-teacher ratio, we found that there are such schools which have only five to 10 students studying but the strength of teachers is around four to five. There is no justification in running such schools. In Haryana, an amount of Rs 45,000 is spent on the education of a child, which is the highest in the country.”

“No school in the state has been closed permanently and these will be reopened on the demand of villagers if the prescribed student strength is restored. State government has decided to merge the schools located within a radius of one kilometre in a village or ward and to hand over the school head’s responsibilities to the head of the high school. Now the concept of appointment of two heads in higher and senior secondary schools will be discontinued. All primary and secondary schools have been made co-educational. A common timetable has been prepared for all the schools so that only one teacher can take classes from VI to XII,” the CM said.

About recruitment of teachers, he said, “While 1,700 posts of TGTs shall be filled by HSSC, education department has already initiated the process to fill 13,000 posts of teachers.”

Relief to power defaulters

Giving a big relief to the defaulting power consumers, Khattar announced “Electricity Surcharge Waiver Scheme-2022”, under which they can pay their outstanding principal amount in lump sum or in three instalments.

“Scheme will be applicable for the defaulting power consumers, including domestic, government, and others who have not cleared their dues on and after December 31, 2021. Besides this, consumers whose bill dispute cases are pending in any judicial forum will also be able to take advantage of the scheme, only if they withdraw their cases. All such consumers will be able to pay their outstanding principal amount in lump sum or in three instalments. Further, a five per cent discount will be given to such consumers provided they clear the entire principal amount in one go. Waiver of frozen surcharge will be done in instalments along with regular payment of six bills. For all other consumers, including the government, the late payment surcharge will be re-calculated at the simple rate of 10 per cent per annum, whereas at present it is calculated at the rate of 1.5 per cent monthly,” he said.

ACS (power) P K Das said, “The total arrears of domestic (rural) consumers is Rs 4,969 crore and domestic (urban) is Rs 459 crore, including principal amount and surcharge.”

Enrolment of students up

“As compared to the academic session of 2019-20, there was an increase of 1,93,233 in the enrolment of students for the academic session 2020-21. Also, in the academic session 2021-22, 1,35,925 more students were enrolled as compared to the academic session of 2020-21. The enrolment process for the academic session 2022-23 is in progress,” Khattar said.

OT for settlement of arrears

Aimed at recovering the outstanding arrears of Passenger and Goods Tax amounting to Rs 2,113 crore due till March 31, 2017, Khattar announced a one-time settlement scheme of arrears. “The old ‘Punjab Passenger and Goods Tax Act, 1952’ has been abolished in this area. But tax, interest and penalty amounting to Rs 2,113 crore is due before the abolition of the said Act. Under the scheme formulated by the Transport Department, if the payment is made within a period of 90 days from the date of notification, then the beneficiary will have to pay the principal tax amount along with a lump sum settlement amount equal to 25 per cent of the principal tax. There are about 2,62,715 total vehicles whose total payable tax up to March 31, 2017 amounts to Rs 778 crore, while the interest payable up to March 31, 2017, is Rs 761 crore. From April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2021, the total calculated interest is Rs 574 crore,” the CM said.

New roads in urban areas

Roads having a cumulative length of 506 km would be constructed and repaired by the Urban Local Bodies Department.
Tenders will be floated in the next 15 days. The Haryana State Agricultural Marketing Board will construct 313 roads of about 850 km length. The new roads will be built using blacktop technology. Besides, other roads will also be built in rural as well as urban areas. “Roads having a cumulative length of 2,750 kilometres will be built in 90 Assembly constituencies by Public Works Department in the next 18 months incurring a cost of Rs 1,600 crore,” Khattar said. “HSVP shall construct roads with a length of 112 kms. Gurgaon Metropolitan Development Authority and Faridabad Metropolitan Development Authority have proposed to construct 197-km-long roads costing about Rs 402 crore,” Khattar added.