‘Recovery of special allowance given to teachers against SC order’

MLC S L Bhoje Gowda said the State government’s directions to recovery the special allowance given to higher secondary school teachers and PU lecturers of aided and government schools and colleges, was a violation of Supreme Court order.

According to the Supreme Court's order, all eligible teachers should get the special allowance, he said.

Gowda warned of exploring legal options if government does not withdraw its order on the recovery of the special allowance given to the teachers.

He said the director of Department of Public Instruction had directed DDPIs to instruct the drawing authorities—headmasters and principals, to collect special allowance of Rs 200 given to higher secondary school teachers and PU lecturers of aided and government institutions.

The government’s order has not taken into account the Supreme Court’s order that had upheld the special payment. The director in his order had cited the order of Comptroller and Auditor General of India of March 31, 2017, that had asked for recovery procedure, he said

Gowda said he had raised the issue with Thirthahalli MLA and Chairman of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Araga Jnanendra.

“Araga Jnanendra has agreed to revisit the same order. The recovery of Rs 8 crore will affect 16,367 teachers, including 11,804 government teachers,” the MLC said.

He criticised the government for failing to tackle COVID-19 crisis in Karnataka. Gowda said though the government had announced relief package, it had failed to identify the beneficiaries for the package till now. Only 200 beneficiaries had been identified in Savitha Samaja in Dakshina Kannada for the relief package.

The COVID-19 testing laboratories have not been set up in all the districts in Karnataka. Chikkamagaluru has no testing laboratory. The samples from Chikkamagaluru are sent to Hassan. "Mangaluru has only 13 ventilators,” he added.