Aizawl: Over 200 employees of District Institute for Education and Training (DIET) in Mizoram under the aegis of Association of Mizoram DIET Employees (AMDE) have staged an agitation demanding regular pay.
AMDE president Christina Lalthansangi said that the employees across eight districts of the state have stayed off their work commencing on Monday as the Mizo National Front (MNF) government headed by chief minister Zoramthanga failed to pay their salaries for six months causing huge financial problems to the employees.
She alleged that the state government was unable to pay them because it could not meet its matching share against the fund provided by the Centre for the salary.
According to Christina, the sharing pattern between the Centre and state government for meeting the salaries of DIET employees is 60:40.
She alleged that the state government did not allocate any fund to meet its matching share (40%) in the state’s annual budget.
Christina said that they have made repeated appeals to the state government for regular pay and re-structuring of their services but to no avail.
She further alleged that school education minister Lalchhandama Ralte was avoiding the association leaders to discuss the matter.
Despite repeated attempts Ralte and other officials could not be contacted for comment.
According to Christina, the AMDE leaders will hold a meeting with officials on Tuesday to find out a solution.
She said that they will continue with their agitation if the meeting yields no positive outcome.
Presently, there are eight District Institute for Education and Training in Mizoram – one each in eight districts, including Aizawl.
The ongoing agitation has affected over 1,000 students, according to Christina.
Meanwhile, a statement issued by AMDE said that the government also did not formulate any solution to the financial problems faced by para-academic staff after the Centre stopped granting funds for the staff in 2021.
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DIET being the stand-alone teacher educational institution, the government should make it a multi-disciplinary institute if it is going to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) as the new education policy has no longer allowed stand-alone educational institutes, the statement also said.
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