By Abdul Alim Jafri  / News Click

Lucknow: This year’s Teachers’ Day on Tuesday is completely shorn of colour for many madrasa state teachers. Salary blues continue to haunt them. They have not been paid their salaries for the past six years, making life miserable. Two square meals have become a problem for a large number of them.

The government has promised that the salaries would be paid soon, but the hopes get belied every time. About two years back, madrasa teachers from across the state protested for pending salaries and met with the officials concerned. Still, this deadline has expired without any success for teachers.

Some teachers NewsClick talked to were cagey about going on record with their grievances. Mohd Azam, a Darul Uloom Hussainia Imambara teacher in Gorakhpur’s Diwan Bazar, told NewsClick that he had not been paid a salary for six years. “This has caused a state of depression among teachers, and they are not able to concentrate on teaching. There is no respect for teachers. Only Teachers’ Day is celebrated as a formality once a year,” he said.

He has been teaching at Darul Uloom Hussainia Imambara for the last 28 years. Still, ever since the Madrasa modernisation scheme run by the Central government started, till now, the government has not been able to ensure the system of giving salary for the month.

Around 163 madrassas in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s home turf, Gorakhpur, are associated with the modernisation plan. Under this, about 489 district teachers teach modern subjects, including Hindi, English, Science, Mathematics and computer.

“In every madrasa, three teachers get a salary from the Central government. These teachers are to be paid a monthly salary of Rs 15,000. Of this, the Centre pays Rs 12,000 and state Rs 3,000. These teachers have been deprived of the central share of their salary for the last six years despite repeated requests to government authorities through various channels,” he told NewsClick.

This story was originally published in newsclick.in. Read the full story here