Concerned over the hardships that the teachers working under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), in the Union Territory have been facing for the past three years, former Union Minister and ex-MP, Pawan Kumar Bansal has demanded MHRD to immediately wake up the slumber of indifference and move into action and transfer Rs 20 Crore, as promised, to Chandigarh for disbursal of salaries of teachers and other employees.
 Seeing teachers forced to come out on roads and hold protests every now and then is not a happy augury for the objective SSA, he said.

In a protest held in Chandigarh, the other day,the SSA teachers and employees lamented that the HRD Minister, Prakash Javedkar  was not staying true to his commitment by not transferring the shortfall budget of SSA of 2016-17 due to which, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Society and Education Department have no budget to pay salaries for August and September to 819 teachers and other 245 employees.

Citing the similar protest earlier this year, wherein the UT teachers had to struggle hard to get the second instalment of SSA amounting to Rs. 32 crore, Bansal said that the irregular and lack of timely transfer of budget by the HRD Ministry to the Administration and consequent non-payment of salary to teachers by the latter for long time has become a regular phenomenon in the last three years which highlights poor and insensitive governance. As a result, low paid SSA teachers and other employees have been put to repeated difficulty in managing their household expenditures.

"I would wish and expect that the HRD minister, Prakash Javadekar, whose ministry has committed an insensitive blunder towards education by not transferring budget to UT and states approved under Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), to immediately deliver what he had promised," he said.

Bansal also said that the MHRD and MOF both have violated the mandatory provision of the Right to Education Act, 2009 by not providing an SSA budget to Chandigarh.

He further added, "While the city is already grappling with problems like rape, stalking, molestation, it is deeply disappointing to see now education becoming the victim of poor and insensitive governance."