Mangaluru : The teachers under the RMSA staged a protest outside the office of the Block Education Officer in Belthangady on Tuesday and Wednesday demanding pay.

More than 300 trained graduate teachers and other staff under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) were disappointed, as they have not got their salary for the last three months.

As many as 25 teachers working under the Rashtriya Madhamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) in Belthangady taluk have also not received their wages, for the last seven months.

Speaking at the district level Teachers’ Day programme in Sullia on Wednesday, Shivashankar Bhat, president, Dakshina Kannada unit of Karnataka Primary School Teachers’ Association, regretted that teachers have been forced to stage a protest to get their salary.

Official sources said the Finance Department has been releasing schoolteachers’ salary grant to taluk panchayats every quarter under six different heads. The department released the salary for three months, from March to May, in June.

An error in releasing the grant reportedly led to interchange of the grants of 14 taluks in four districts in the State, including Dakshina Kannada. The grants pertaining to Belthangady taluk went to Bantwal and vice versa. As a result, there was no allocation under the RMSA for Belthangady having 25 teachers. Bantwal taluk suffered as there was too less allocation for personnel under the SSA and for teachers in private schools who received salary from the government.

Though the Finance Department assured that the anomaly would be rectified, sources said the error repeated while releasing the second instalment of the salary grant a few days ago.

This has affected teachers, block resource coordinators and other staff under the SSA who are receiving salary in a staggered manner. They are yet to receive salary from June to August.

A cluster resource person employed under the SSA in Manglauru said the delay had come in the way of paying their children’s fees and house rent. A special teacher from Moodbidri said she could not pay the housing loan instalment, and now she has pay the interest too.

Deputy Director of Public Instruction, Dakshina Kannada, Y. Shivaramaiah said arrangement was being made to disburse the second quarterly grant among teachers in the next few days. He said a proposal has been sent to the government for release of additional grant to overcome the shortfall in funds.