Team Herald

PANJIM: Over seven months after the State government reintroduced the new and revised House Building Advance (HBA) scheme, close to 300 teachers from aided schools across the State are still struggling to get the benefit. These teachers were beneficiaries of the old HBA scheme, which was discontinued in May 2020.

There are also close to 100 new applications, filed by the teachers, which have not been cleared by the Directorate of Education (DoE). The DoE has now informed the teachers that the file has been sent to the Finance Department seeking clarification on whether the scheme is applicable to teachers from aided schools.

As per the revised scheme, which is applicable to the beneficiaries of the earlier scheme, the State’s allowance will be restricted to a maximum of five per cent of the interest and anything above that, as well as the principal component, will be charged from the beneficiary

On Tuesday, a group of teachers met DoE director Shailesh Zingde seeking to know the status of the scheme implementation.

The teachers informed Herald that six months have passed since the government notified the revised HBA. However the benefits have not been extended to the aided school teachers. “We were the beneficiaries of the HBA scheme which was discontinued in 2020. And the revised scheme is extended to the same beneficiaries. As such, the scheme is applicable to us but the DoE is not ready to provide us the benefit,” teachers said.

The teachers said that the former Education Director had moved the file to the Chief Minister as well as the Finance Minister, who had granted their approvals to extend the benefits to us.

“However, till now, the benefit has not been released to us. And now, the new Director says he has again moved the file to the Finance department for clarification,” they said.

“This is basically an attempt to deprive us from the benefit,” the teachers said, adding that currently they are forced to pay 7.9 per cent interest on their loans.