TMC MP blames 'payers' not 'payees' for cash-for school-job scam case

Kolkata: Trinamool Congress leader and three- time Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy on Sunday held ‘payers’ more responsible than ‘payees’ in the multi-crore cash-for-school- job scam case in West Bengal.

Roy, himself a retired professor of physics, said that the people gets allured to teaching jobs because of the factor of “high salaries” against “lesser work” and this syndrome prompts several youths to somehow get teaching jobs at any cost and going to any extent.

“It is unfortunate but true that these days very few view teaching as a ‘mission’ rather than a ‘profession’. Often people take up teaching as a profession, being unable to get jobs elsewhere. That is why there have been so many complaints of irregularities in teacher’s recruitment. The root cause is the same which is ‘high salaries’ against ‘lesser work’. However, corruption is not acceptable at any cost. Let the law take its own course,” he said.

He said that the Indian communists earlier had always conducted movements in demand for higher salaries for teachers.

“Their logic was that in absence of the higher salaries for the teachers, the academic quality cannot improve. Now the salaries in teaching jobs are lucrative. But has it really resulted in improvement in academic quality?” he questioned.

Recently a judge of the special court of Prevention of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Kolkata, where matters related to the cash-for-school- job case are being heard, also observed that those paying cash for getting the school jobs unethically are equally guilty with those receiving the same to facilitate the process.

The judge also observed that corruption can be handled only if both the “demand” and “supply” side of the irregularities are addressed by the law enforcement agencies.