UTTAR PRADESH: Every paisa makes a rupee. When over three lakh people donate Rs 16 each, that becomes a whopping Rs 100-crore over time.
That’s how lakhs of Uttar Pradesh government teachers decided to depend on nothing but their ingenuity and a sense of kinship to secure their families’ future when any of them passed away.
Families of teachers who pass away are now assured of minimum sustenance. They get a lumpsum amount so that they don’t need to despair even in the most dire of situations.
Formed during the Covid-19 pandemic to help their fraternity, a group of state government teachers with over three lakh members in Uttar Pradesh continued with the endeavour even after. The group has helped over 276 families by collecting Rs 109.24 crore in the last five years.
With the onset of the pandemic in 2020, many government teachers either passed away or fell ill during the lockdown. Families were desperate for money, having lost the breadwinners. A government teacher from Prayagraj, Vivekanand Arya, got the idea to launch a “self-care team” with a dedicated website and a mobile application.
“The contribution was set at Rs 16 a head so that it is not a burden on the donors. Just like a building is built brick by brick, the contribution of `16 results in a respectable amount to help a distraught family,” said Arya. This is how it worked: “When a colleague dies while in service, all our four lakh members (3.25 lakh active) – government teachers from primary, secondary and higher education – pool in Rs 16 each, with the commitment to provide at least Rs 50 lakh to the bereaved family.
This way, families don’t face financial challenges, and their children’s studies remain unaffected.” This is truly a unique initiative for the teachers, of the teachers and by the teachers. Arya explained the rationale: “Government teachers joining the service after 2022 under the new scheme have no pension benefits. If a government teacher passes away, they will only be entitled to salary till the day they are alive and will not even get the full month’s salary. That’s where we come in.”
He said the idea came to him in 2020 when his colleague Mohammad Shakeel Ahmed died in a road accident. Ahmed’s wife and three children – two daughters and a son – got the shock of their life, with an uncertain future staring at them. That prompted the birth of the Teachers’ Self-Care Team (TSCT). It extended a helping hand to the distraught family by raising Rs 7 lakh through contributions.
Nazneen Begum, 48, wife of Mohammad Shakeel Ahmed, said, “The money I got after my husband’s sudden demise secured the future of my two sons and helped in paying the premium for insurance policies that my husband had. Besides financial assistance, the money gave us stability at a time when no one else was there to back us.”
Ahmad’s family was the first to receive financial help. In the absence of government compensation, TSCT provided a big respite to the bereaved families of government teachers.
Take the example of Harish Gangwar, a government teacher in Bareilly. He passed away in 2024 due to bone marrow failure after spending almost five months in a hospital in Delhi.
“When Harish Bhai was on a ventilator, he had personally asked me to take care of his family. He was looking for a match for his eldest daughter, Priyanka, who is now married to a tehsildar posted in Badaun. He would have been pleased if he had been alive,” said Vivekanand. As the team grew stronger, TSCT also expanded.
Currently, it has 17 office bearers at the state level, 15 in each of 75 districts, and five at 826 blocks across the state. Besides, they have a dedicated IT cell that handles information that comes through social media. TSCT now supports teachers suffering from chronic illnesses. “From May 1, we have started providing financial help of Rs 5 lakh to our colleagues,” Arya said.