Chandigarh, March 6: The Punjab cabinet has approved regularization of the services of 5,178 teachers recruited by the Education Department, with full pay scales, to be implemented from October 1, 2019.
The cabinet has also regularised 650 nurses of the Health Department as per the department’s probation rules.
These contractual nurses had been agitating for some time for regularisation at basic pay.
Of the 5,178 category teachers, 5,078 were recruited in the Master cadre and 100 as Classical & Vernacular (C&V) Teachers by the Department in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
According to a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office, the cabinet also decided that the services of those teachers recruited during 2014, 2015 and 2016 would be regularised at full scale on completion of their two-year probation.
The cabinet has reduced the probation period from three years to two years.
Further, the teachers would be assigned seniority from the date of completion of their probation period.
These teachers are currently paid Rs 7,500 per month and their salary would now be fixed at minimum of grade pay, that is, Rs 15,300 per month till the time they are given full scale.
The Cabinet also recorded its appreciation for Education Minister OP Soni and Secretary Krishan Kumar for effectively handling the issue arising out of the teachers’ protests, and resolving it amicably.
The Chief Minister had directed the School Education Department, while chairing a meeting to review its functioning on February 27, to bring a comprehensive proposal before the next Cabinet meeting to enable the government to take a final decision in this regard.
