Unauthorised use of Union Casual Leave making a dent in Telangana govt coffers

Nizamabad: The Union Casual Leave (UCL) facility, which the government has introduced for the leaders of teachers' unions, is causing a dent to State's exchequer with the leaders of even unrecognised unions availing the leaves. Usually, the government employees and teachers can avail 22 casual leaves if they are men and 27 casual leaves if they are women. Further, there are 21 UCLs in addition the casual leaves that can be availed by the State-level and district-level leaders of the unions, especially the presidents and secretaries, who are members of the recognised unions of Civil Service Joint Staff Council (CSJSC).

In undivided Andhra Pradesh, APGO (TGO), NGOs, PRTU, STU, UTF and APTF unions, Fourth Class Employees Union and Government Driver Unions were members of the CSJSC and they had 21 additional UCLs privilege. After the formation of Telangana, the UCL facility has been extended to another four teachers unions that are not the members of the CSJSC. The State has a total of 58 teachers unions and only seven unions have the provision to avail the UCL facility officially. However, the leaders of remaining 51 unions have been availing the facility forcing the government to pay the salaries that run into lakhs of rupees.

Though the State government is aware of the damage caused by the unauthorised use of UCLs by the 51 unions, it has been maintaining silence. Further, the government has not renewed the UCL facility after December 31, 2018 for the recognised unions and the since January 1, 2019, the State leadership of the teachers have been availing the facility though it was not renewed.

Some of the teachers who have been transferred to Hyderabad and its surroundings on deputation and other non-teaching staff, unions district-level presidents and secretaries have been availing the UCLs without its renewal. As many as 462 presidents and secretaries of seven recognised Teachers' Unions in 33 districts of Telangana State had used the UCLs before December 2018.

However, from 2019 onwards, the leaders of all unions, both recognised and unrecognised, are availing the UCL facility forcing the government to pay for the man hours lost. Meanwhile, with the rampant use of UCLs, the school authorities are clueless about how to deal with the issue of absentee teachers who are also members of the unions. Moreover, some of the teachers' union leaders have been arguing that the government has been partial to the rest of the unions by providing UCLs to them.

They stated that the leaders of Government Driver's Union, Secretariat Unions and Telangana Gazetted Officers Union have been availing the facility though the facility was not renewed since August last. Further, the unions like PRTU, STU, UTF and APTF have been claiming that they have the authority to avail the UCLs even if the facility was not renewed. As a result, with no proper rules in place, the work hours of schools are being effected with the unions leaders, who also happen to be staff of schools, neglecting their duties and drawing the salaries causing loss to the government.

Now with the lack of clarity, the UCL facility is being used by the leaders of 58 unions informally. There is a need to bring clarity on UCLs as early as possible, lest the government will have to pay salaries for the UCLs used by the union leaders' sans any provision. Last year, the government had paid for a total of 80,388 days to the union leaders who had availed the facility causing a dent to the State's exchequer.

By Bhagyanagar Bhaskar Kumar