How IAS officer refused to draw his salary till 'Ayahs, Cooks' are paid

Vijayawada: Setting a new example of probity, a top education honcho today declared to draw his salary only after Ayahs and Cooks' working in Andhra Pradesh schools are duly paid. Principal Secretary, Department of School Education, Praveen Prakash was reacting after the issue in payment of salaries was brought to his notice.

Praveen Prakash visited Zilla Parishad school in Kakinada a few days ago as a part of the regular inspection of schools. He was told that there had been a delay in salary payments of mid-day meal staff under Jagananna Gorumudda and ayahs who are employed to clean toilets in the government schools under the Mana Badi Naadu-Nedu program. A total of 88,296 cooks and 46,661 ayahs are to be paid their monthly wages.

On March 10, he wrote a letter to the Assistant Secretary, Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) K. CH. Venkateshwarlu requesting to process his salary bill only after receiving the letter of payments given to ayahs and cooks every month from the Director mid-day-meal (MDM). The letter copy was also sent to the Director of Mid Day Meal, Dr. Nidhi Meena. Speaking to NewsMeter, Praveen Prakash said: "He would take his salary only after the cooks and ayahs are paid their monthly salary. This practice will come into effect this month (i.e. due in April)."

According to Praveen Prakash, ayahs, and cooks are the backbone of School Education (nutrition and infrastructure). Under the Nadu Nedu program, apart from many other components, the major highlight is the toilets for the school's boy and girl students. A total of 46,661 Ayahs have been appointed in schools of Andhra Pradesh to maintain the toilets. And 88,296 cooks have been appointed for the 44,392 schools to provide nutritious meals to the students.

"To ensure that there is a transparent and fast method of providing the honorarium, the government has designed a system by which automatically the amount of the bill gets credited to the beneficiary's account after the bill is processed. The preparation of the monthly bill has also been automated, which, like any good system, has the Maker, Checker, and Approver modules in place", he wrote in the letter. In the letter, he also explained the five-step payment process for these workers.

Reasons for delay:

According to Praveen Prakash, the government, from time to time has prescribed timelines for uploading the bills at each level (at the school, Mandal, and district levels). In this chain, if the timeline is followed at a different level, it results in non-payment of timely honorarium to cooks and ayahs. As the system is robust, a delay in updating the bill at any one level results in a delay of payment for 30 days. He directed the officials that sensitization at all levels needs to be done to ensure that all the ayahs and cooks get salaries in a similar format as government employees are provided.

Monthly report:

Praveen Prakash asked the Director MDM to submit the monthly report incorporating whether all the ayahs and cooks have received a salary. He said that every month, he would forward the compliance report after the receipt of the letter from the Director MDM.

"Please process the bill for the payment of my salary for each month only after the payment of the salary of all the ayahs and cooks is completed for that month. Under no circumstance, you should process the bill of my salary without getting the compliance report from me stating that the salaries of 88,296 cooks and 46,661 ayahs have been credited to their accounts", said Praveen Prakash in the letter.