Maharashtra Shikshan Sevak GR For Maternity Leave
Alfonzo Liebenstein
All the female teachers working under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (now Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan-SMSA) will be granted 26 weeks or 182 days of paid maternity leave as opposed to 12 weeks or 84 days that they were getting earlier.
SSA teachers were granted unpaid maternity leave for 84 days till 2008. After SSATWA invoked the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, and made a case with the SSA Society, provision was made for 84 days of paid leave from 2009.
After the central government revised the Maternity Benefit Act in March 2017, increasing the number of maternity leave days from 84 to 182, SSATWA demanded the increase for teachers that work on contractual basis.
Shikshan Sevaks are temporary teachers who are appointed by the Maharashtra government for a period of three years on a fixed salary. They are eligible for regularisation after completing their service tenure and passing a qualifying examination. However, they have been facing several issues regarding their service conditions, such as low pay, lack of job security, and denial of maternity leave.
In a recent development, the Maharashtra government has issued a Government Resolution (GR) dated 25/11/2005 , which grants maternity leave to female Shikshan Sevaks as per the provisions of the Maharashtra Employees of Private Schools (Conditions of Service) Rules, 1981. According to the GR, a female Shikshan Sevak who has completed one year of continuous service is entitled to maternity leave for a period of 135 days with full pay. The GR also states that the maternity leave will not affect the regularisation process of the Shikshan Sevak.
However, the GR on maternity leave is not the only issue that Shikshan Sevaks have been facing. They have also been demanding regularisation of their services after completing three years of working, as per the original resolution that introduced the concept of Shikshan Sevaks. But many of them have been denied regularisation due to various reasons, such as lack of funds, excess staff, or non-availability of vacancies. Some of them have also been declared as surplus and transferred to other schools without their consent.
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