In limbo, North MCD teachers unpaid & unable to transfer

New Delhi: Thousands of teachers in North MCD school now find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place — on the one hand, they have not been paid salaries for months and on the other, the North Delhi civic body is not allowing them to transfer to schools under the other two MCDs, where they hope for more timely payments.

While more consistent pay is definitely one of the reasons over 2,000 teachers are looking to transfer out, many are looking to transfer out for personal reasons — the primary one being the distance between their homes and their schools, which in some cases is causing too much trouble for the teachers.

Significantly, while the North MCD opens up an online portal for teachers to apply for transfers at the beginning of every year, nearly 80 per cent of those who wanted to transfer this year, were unable to do so — simply because the portal did not open for them or malfunctioned in other ways- a problem the teachers say they have been facing for three years now, ever since the system went online.

Despite repeated complaints over the last three years, the North MCD is yet to fix the issues.

The Teacher Nyay Manch of the civic body has said it has received complaints about the BMID created by the department to apply for transfers being incorrect, wrong joining dates and incorrect school preferences. Moreover, principal transfers have not happened in the last 4 years and they are still not included in the process, the teachers' association said.

Several attempts to speak to multiple North MCD officials through messages and calls failed to elicit a response. However, the civic body has reportedly said that they have "closed the matter" for the time being to fix the technical issues.

Furthermore, the transfer applications that did manage to be registered in this year's window (opened earlier this month) have now been stayed, according to sources.

North MCD currently has approximately 7000 teachers under it, of which 2550 have wanted to transfer for various reasons but have not been able to due to inconsistencies within the portal.

The teachers' union chief Kuldeep Singh Khatri said that it is clear from this type of evidence that there is a deficiency in the transfer portal itself which needs to be rectified first because incorrect transfers are also happening because of this.

Khatri added the department had made arbitrary rules and regulations that are discriminatory such as no male teachers will teach in girl schools and teachers cannot transfer before serving 2 years in one place regardless of their situation. "Transfer is a right and everyone should be able to exercise it, if teachers' mental states and needs are not catered to, students won't benefit either," he told Millennium Post.