Specific Information Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The picture of 98-year-old Karthiyayani Amma, the face of the state’s literacy motion, receiving the ‘Nari Shakti Puraskar’ from the President continues to be afresh in our minds. The nonagenarian from Alappuzha, together with 105-year-old Bhageerathi Amma from Kollam, received the honour for not letting age have an effect on their pursuit of data. Nonetheless, the plight of ‘preraks’ of the Kerala State Literacy Mission Authority, who work on the grassroots stage imparting literacy to round one lakh individuals within the non-formal schooling sector, typically goes unnoticed.
Since March this yr, round 1,860 ‘preraks’ have been left within the lurch and haven’t acquired even a single penny as honorarium. In 2017, their honorarium beneath completely different classes was raised to Rs 15,000 for nodal preraks, Rs 12,000 for preraks and Rs 10,500 for assistant preraks. However even 4 years down the road, none of them have acquired the total honorarium on any given month as a result of unreasonable targets and pay cuts for numerous causes.
As literacy actions got here to a grinding halt because of the pandemic final yr, these ‘preraks’ have been rendering yeoman service at numerous panchayats as Covid frontline employees.With the Literacy Mission expressing lack of ability to assist the preraks, the state basic schooling division issued an order re-deploying them to native our bodies by March 31. However the file referring to their re-deployment has been hanging fireplace for months as a result of official apathy and crimson tape.
Even whereas finishing up Covid duties within the face of the raging pandemic, the preraks needed to wrestle with their downsized honorarium. However issues turned worse after the file referring to their redeployment received caught. With no pay for 3 months now, they just lately shared their litany of woes on Basic Schooling Minister V Sivankutty’s Fb web page.
“The scenario is such that we’re neither recognized as workers of panchayats nor as literacy mission employees. Although we’re a part of the Covid brigade and are keen to undertake literacy actions when the scenario improves, authorities move the buck on the subject of paying us,” stated A A Santhosh, secretary, Kerala State Preraks Affiliation.
Basic Schooling Secretary A P M Mohammad Hanish stated there was some delay in acquiring the whole listing of ‘preraks’ from the literacy mission. “We’ve got been actively pursuing the case of the preraks for the previous one month. The preliminary listing submitted by literacy mission had some anomalies and these are being rectified. We’re hopeful of finishing the redeployment course of on the earliest,” he advised TNIE.
