GUWAHATI, Jan 11 � The Assam Government has barred the release of salaries of over 200 senior Education Department officials for causing inordinate delay in the release of salary of over 16,000 newly provincialised teachers of primary and middle English schools.
Their salaries would now be released only after the salary-related hassles of the teachers are taken care of. The officers include the Director of Elementary Education and the District Elementary Education Officers.
This was stated by Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while talking to mediapersons here today.
The Minister also threatened to take even harsher steps if the trend continues. Of the 18,000 teachers recruited last year, salary hassles of 90 per cent of them have not been cleared as yet. This in spite of the fact that the Minister had written to the officers concerned on the matter. Sarma said the Treasury Office has been given the requisite direction.
�I would not hesitate to suspend all the officers at one go if they fail to deliver the goods,� Sarma said. He said the step is being taken to instill professionalism in the minds of government employees.
�I hope that things would be taken care of by February 1. I will review the status on February 7,� he said.
Immunisation drive:The Health Minister also said that a mass immunisation drive to fight prevalence of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) is going to be organised in as many as nine districts of the State from February 10.
This would arguably be the first adult vaccination drive in the country for JE, which has accounted for more than 100 lives on an average in the last few years in the State.
The districts to be covered include Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur, Golaghat, Jorhat, Kamrup (Rural), Sonapur and Chandrapur areas under Kamrup (Metro) and Sivasagar.
Nearly 80,000 people are expected to be benefitted from the drive, which will last till February 19.
The Indian Centre for Medical Research has recently observed that of every 100 JE patients, 85 per cent are not affected for the second time.
The government will have to bear an estimated expenditure of Rs 30 crore.
�Once the vaccination is done, it would reduce the JE prevalence rate considerably,� Sarma said.
