Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday constituted a high-level committee, headed by the chief secretary, to address the long-standing concerns of the aided and unaided educational institutions, Sanskrit schools and madrasas of the state.

Sharing this information, deputy chief minister Samrat Choudhary said the committee will meet every month and conduct a thorough review of all matters related to the allotment of establishment grants to the thousands of aided and unaided degree colleges, Sanskrit schools and madrasas across the state. The committee will also oversee payments of salaries and other emoluments to the teachers and non-teaching staff of these institutions, he said.

Choudhary said more than 10,000 teachers and non-teaching staff of all these educational institutions have been agitating for the last several years for payment of their wages. Now, with the constitution of this high-level committee, they will get all their entitlements regularly.

Other members of the committee are the development commissioner, additional chief secretaries of education, general administration and finance departments, chairman of Bihar School Examination Board, secretary of the state minority welfare department and the directors of primary and secondary education, Bihar.

The committee will ensure timely release of establishment grants and review matters related to fixation of salaries and honorarium and removal of anomalies related to pay fixation and other issues from time to time.

However, criticising this notification, president of Bihar State Affiliated Degree College Teachers and Non-teaching Staff Federation, Shambhunath Prasad Sinha said, “It is merely an eyewash. The govt has so far not implemented the recommendations of at least three such committees headed by Krishna Bahadur, Jagdanand and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh in the past. Moreover, the teachers of unaided degree colleges are yet to receive the arrears of their salary payments from 2015 to 2018.”