PANJIM: The Goa Human Rights Commission (GHRC) disposed of suo moto petition after the Director of Education assured that the new house building loan scheme will be extended to staff of government aided institutions.
During the last hearing, Director of Education Shailesh Zingde stated that the Department of Finance has issued a notification dated May 21, 2022, extending the benefits of the house building loan scheme to all employees of grant-in-aided institutions and the same has been notified in Official Gazette dated September 2, 2022.
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In August this year, the three-member Commission took suo moto cognisance of a news published by Herald dated August 17, under the heading “From May 2002, DoE keeps aided school teachers waiting for House Building Advance” and issued notice to the Director of Education asking him to submit his reply on or before September 20.
The State government by a notification dated December 13, 2021 had started House Building Advance scheme for its employees but was not sure whether the benefits of the scheme could be extended to staff of government-aided institutions as well as the procedure adopted for both differed. Thus in May this year, the Directorate of Education wrote to the Debt Management Division of Department of Finance seeking to know whether the department should follow the procedure stipulated in the notification or whether to follow the traditional procedure to grant house building advance.
The Department of Finance allowed the Directorate of Education to follow the traditional procedure to settle house building advance loan cases but did not change the prescribed proforma as per the requirement of the Directorate of Education. The department again moved the file to the Department of Finance, who issued a notification dated August 21, 2022 extending benefits of HBA to employees of government-aided institutions and notified the same in the Official Gazette on September 2, 2022.
The new notification published in the Official Gazette will now help nearly 300 beneficiaries mostly working in government-aided schools as their loan deductions was withheld since May.
