Teachers recruited under scrapped SRO-202 angry over ‘conditional transfer policy’

Srinagar, Apr 29: The teachers appointed under the scrapped SRO-202 recruitment rules have expressed shock and anger over the ‘discriminatory transfer policy’ for the teaching staff notified by the School Education Department wherein they are required to have at least 5-years of stay period to be eligible for Annual Transfer Drive-2023.
An aggrieved delegation of the General Line Teachers said that the government has scrapped the SRO-202 rules under which, an employee had to undergo 5-year probationary period and had no claim to seek transfer for the same period.
“The probation period has been reduced to 2 years now from the earlier 5 years, which is the general rule for all the employees. Therefore, an employee should be eligible for the transfer after successfully completing the 2-year probationary period,” it said.
As per the recently announced Transfer Policy, teachers posted in Zone I, II and III, having a minimum 3-year stay period at any school are eligible to apply for the transfer. Similarly, teachers posted in Zone IV and V, having a minimum 2-year and 1-year stay period respectively at any school are also eligible to apply in the ATD-2023. However, teachers appointed under SRO-202 have been excluded from these general eligibility criteria and are required to have a 5-year stay period to apply in ATD-2023.
“If SRO-202 is already gone and repealed by the government, we are confused about why this rule is still being dragged into our service. Even our increments for our initial 2 years probation period are also being denied to us due to these rules which, otherwise, have been repealed long back by the government. We sincerely request the Principal Secretary, Alok Kumar to kindly look into the matter and modify this rule to make this an inclusive policy for its successful implementation,” the delegation said.
“The policy seems to be very discriminatory for many of the teachers appointed under the scrapped SRO-202 recruitment rules,” the delegation said.
Citing the other issues which need urgent attention, the delegation requested Alok Kumar to allow teachers to apply within the Zones as there are limited options for teachers, especially in Srinagar, to choose the schools as the preferred postings.
“Of the total of more than 550 schools in Srinagar, only 29 schools are falling in Zone II in Srinagar. How can SED adjust transfer requests from 421 schools of Zone I to 29 schools of Zone II? Authorities need to relax this rule to make this policy employee friendly,” they said.
The delegation also sought blanket ban on frequent deployments in the department, for fair and rationalized distribution of teaching staff in the schools.