Permission to sell or buy properties: Govt makes U-turn on order for teachers

Hyderabad: Within hours of issuing a GO by the Education Department making it mandatory for the Government teachers to file property details every year and seek government permission to sell or buy movable or immovable property, the state government withdrew the orders.

This was announced by Minister for Education Sabitha Indra Reddy following criticism both from the teachers' union and opposition parties.

Officials said they had issued orders in the wake of reports that teachers working in the government schools were spending most of their time in realty business and chit funds. They said that such an order was there for past several years but now the government had decided to implement it strictly following a recent incident of clash between a government teacher and a few political leaders regarding a property issue in Nalgonda district.

They said the Vigilance had given a report saying that most of the teachers were on long leave and were skipping the schools during the working days to make some extra money through reality business.

Officials said that the Education department conducted a review based on the Vigilance report which also said that the dropout rate in government schools was increasing due to lack of presence of teachers in the schools.

Taking serious note of the dereliction of duties by the teachers, it was decided to strictly implement the orders and a proceeding was issued by School Education Director Madan Mohan.

This decision was strongly opposed by Telangana State United Teachers' Federation. They said teachers file their IT returns every year where their income and property details are mentioned.

BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar condemned the order making it mandatory for all the teachers to declare details of their assets every year. In a statement, Sanjay he said asking teachers to declare their assets every year and take a no-objection certificate from the government before selling or purchasing movable and immovable assets were nothing but harassing the teaching community psychologically. Congress leader Komatireddy Venkat Reddy also criticised this decision of the education department.