Bhubaneswar: Here is some good news that would bring back cheers to thousands of teachers working as Siksha Sahayaks in Orissa govt. schools. The state cabinet yesterday decided to regularize nearly 52,000 Siksha Sahayaks and retain the EGS voluntary teachers as '"Gana Sikhyak" with enhanced pay scale.

The state Chief Secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy while addressing a press conference here said, "All the 52,000 Siksha Sahayaks would be now regularized in phases and those who had completed six years of service would be made primary school teachers with effect from April 1, to work under the Zilla Parishad.

Under the new decision, "Siksha Sahayaks, who have completed three years of service, would be paid a consolidated amount of Rs 3,500 per month while those serving for less than three years would be offered between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 per month. The new pay package will come into effect from December 2007," Tripathy added.

Earlier, Chief Minister Mr. Naveen Patnaik had announced the package for the Siksha Sahayaks in the Assembly on November 28, 2007 and the Cabinet approved it yesterday. The approval will be placed in the budget session starting from today.

The Chief Secretary also said that the EGS volunteer teachers in the state would be now treated as ''Gana Sikhyak'' with the upgradation of the EGS schools to regular schools under the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

The EGS volunteer teachers would now receive a monthly salary of Rs 2,000 while the untrained would receive Rs 1,700. The EGS teachers with metric qualification would be given three years time to acquire the plus two qualification.

The Cabinet has also approved the enhanced block grants to 1,314 High Schools and 834 Upper Primary (UP) Schools for which the state government is expected to take additional revenue burden of Rs 28.99 crore per annum.

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