SIRAHA, DECEMBER 21
Local representatives in Siraha's Arnama Rural Municipality are using their position to award their kin jobs. It is learnt, even the local level chief is involved in such misuse of power as is evident in the appointment of their relatives as volunteer teachers at some schools. Eight of such teachers were appointed in four schools.
A case in point, in an elementary school in Ward No 5 of Arnama Rural Municipality, two persons have been working as volunteer teachers for the past four months at the behest of the rural municipality Chairperson Ashok Kumar Yadav.
The teacher duo has even received salary for two months - August/September and September/November.
Interestingly, neither of them has received any formal appointment neither from the rural municipality nor from the school. While one of the two persons is said to be Yadav's relative, the next person is said to be a relative of the ward chairperson.
School Principal Rohit Kumar Yadav said they allowed the two persons to work following the rural municipality chief's recommendation.
"We allowed the duo to work upon assurance that the rural municipality would later send official documents, and again when Dashain came up, he (the rural municipality chair) told us to give them salary promising that we would get official documents soon," the principal said. "While I'm facing constant pressure from the local representatives and teachers to release salary again, the school management committee is against it."
Similarly, two teachers each have been appointed without standard procedure in three other schools at the behest of the rural municipality.
Volunteer teachers have been appointed at a secondary school in Arnama, a preliminary school in Maheshpur Dhokre, and a secondary school in Krishnapur.
Though they haven't received any appointment letter from anywhere, they are drawing 21,000 rupees monthly salary following the directive of local representatives.
While the principals of those schools maintain they were keeping the teachers sent by the local level on payroll following the order of the elected local representatives, Arnama Rural Municipality's mayor denied the rural municipality had recommended teachers to schools. Education Section Chief Nathuni Sah said providing salary without formal appointment was illegal. "Schools facing dearth of teachers can appoint them formally by fulfilling necessary procedures, otherwise, this can create problems in the future," he said, adding that it was the job of the school concerned to follow due procedure while inducting new teachers.
The rural municipality's Chief Administrative Officer Krishnananda Singh echoed Sah in calling on the schools concerned to do the needful by following the standard procedure for inducting teachers. "We are only facilitators. It's those schools' job to complete the official formality if they want to keep new teachers." He further said the rural municipality was providing salary for such teachers from internal sources.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 22, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
