Black gudi put up outside Tawde’s house

Mumbai: A group of teachers from Mumbai put up a black gudi outside the house of Maharashtra education minister Vinod Tawde as a mark of protest against the alleged delay in payment of their salaries. The protest came on the day of Gudi Padwa, when Maharashtrians celebrate the commencement of the Hindu New Yea .

A large number of teachers in Mumbai have still not received their February salaries. The state government said that a problem had occurred in the teachers’ salary software ‘Shalarath’ on January 12. To address the resulting delay in salary payments, the education department issued a resolution on February 27 stating that salaries would be processed manually. Schools thus had to deposit salary bills of their teaching and non-teaching staff manually to zonal education offices.

As a mark of protest against the delay, Anil Bornare, head of the Mumbai unit of Maharashtra Rajya Shikshak Parishad, and other teachers reached outside Mr Tawde's bungalow in Vile Parle on Sunday and put up the black gudi.