WARANGAL: At a time when teachers working in panchayat raj and government schools are expressing happiness over the Union Law Ministry giving assent for the implementation of the unified service rule in the two Telugu states, over 200 odd teachers, selected through Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) in 1999 under the zonal category, working in Telangana fear that they might lose seniority and all promotions would go to PR and government teachers selected under district category.
They claim that they have not received any promotions since they were selected as school assistant in 1999 and if the unified service rule is implemented they would have to wait for another few years to get promotion. The reason: under unified service rule, teachers selected under district category would be given priority. As per district category rules, 80 per cent posts would be reserved for locals and 20 per cent for other district. Since most of the teachers selected under the zonal category are from different districts, they may lose promotions.
“We are just over 200 teachers. We want the government to accommodate us first and then go by unified service rule so that we do not lose our promotions,” said a zonal category teacher Srinivas Swamy.
According to him, there are over 400 vacancies of MEO, deputy DEOs and DIET lecturers and since they have not been given promotions since last 18 years, they should be given priority.
In Telangana, 93 per cent teachers are panchayat raj teachers while only seven per cent are government school teachers. In the undivided AP, the then government had issued certain GOs to bring in unified service rule, but the government teachers challenged them in High Court.
The High Court struck down the GOs, saying that the localisation of cadre was not completed and hence the GOs were not valid.The teachers then demanded the state government to take up the issue on top priority and ensure amendment to the Presidential Order for implementation of the unified service rule for the teachers of Government, Zilla Parishad and Mandal Parishad schools.
Following this the state government had filed a Special Leave petition in Supreme Court. The apex court on September 30, 2015 gave a ruling that the state can approach the Centre for bringing in unified services rules through Presidential order.