Prayagraj (UP), Jan 13 (PTI) The Allahabad High Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to form a committee within four weeks to consider the request of shiksha mitra who teach in primary schools to increase their honorarium.

In its order on Friday, the high court hoped that the committee would take appropriate decisions within three months of its formation.

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Disposing of a petition filed by Jitendra Kumar Bharati and several other shiksha mitra, Justice Saurabh Shyam Shamshery observed, "I find merit in the argument of counsel for the petitioners that amount of honorarium presently paid to petitioners is very minimum and it is required to be increased, considering the prevailing financial index and requirement for minimum respectful livelihood."

The petitioners claimed that they are working for 18 years in the same capacity and discharging their duties diligently.

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The counsel for the petitioners submitted that shiksha mitra are discharging duties as regularly appointed assistant teachers. In this backdrop, they claimed that the state authorities be directed to pay them salary as per regular assistant teacher or at least of minimum pay scale.

Alternatively, they requested that the honorarium amount may be revised and for that they have placed examples of honorarium granted to similar contractual appointees in other states. According to the petitioners, the monthly emoluments of shiksha mitra stood at Rs 10,000 which appears inadequate.

Appearing on behalf of the state government, additional advocate general Ashok Mehta denied the claim of the petitioners that they were employed on contract basis.

According to him, they are not working as regular teachers and denied the claim for equal pay for equal work.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)