Patiala- Punjab Education Department has been continuously promoting various teaching and non-teaching cadres for some time, but due to the delay in promotion of SLA/Library Restorer and other categories of librarians for the last one year, there is a lot of disappointment among the employees of these categories.
Comrades associated with Non-Teaching School Librarian Promotion Morcha, Dr. Harpreet Singh (SLA) Patiala, Gurpreet Kaur (SLA) Patiala, Gurwinder Kaur (Library Restorer), District Amritsar, Rajesh Kumar, (Grade Four) District Jalandhar told that they are non-teaching employees in the schools of Education Department Punjab.
They belong to various cadres (SLA, Library Restorer and Grade Four). Many of our cadre colleagues are graduates and B Lib/M Lib pass. Apart from this, some colleagues also have higher educational qualifications like PhD, MPhil and B.Ed.
Under the Non-Teaching Promotion Rules 2018, provision was made for promotion of fifteen percent of the employees of our cadre to the post of Librarian, under which the department promoted some employees to the post of Librarian on 30 December 2021. Then on 6 December 2023, only 10 employees who were deprived of the promotion of December 2021 were promoted and the vacant posts were filled.
At present, the posts of librarians are lying vacant in many schools, due to which the students are deprived of reading the valuable informative books of the library in this competitive era and in many schools, teachers are being given additional charge of the library, due to which they are facing problems in their academic work.
In the past, promotions have been made from non-teaching to master cadre, master to lecturer, clerk to senior assistant/superintendent, grade-4 to SLA, library restorer etc. and the process of promotions of other teaching cadres is also going on. A delegation of these employees has been requesting the DPI, School Education (Secondary), Punjab since last year by giving several demand letters in person and through registered post to start the process of early promotion of employees fulfilling the eligibility criteria for promotion to the post of librarian. Every time the DPI Sahib had assured the delegation that their library promotions would be done soon, but the department has not yet started any process of librarian promotion.
It is sometimes said that a separate seniority list of border and non-border areas has to be prepared which is not applicable to any other cadre yet and promotions are being done on a large scale, but the department has been hanging the promotion of librarians in this category for the last two years by giving illogical arguments without any reason. Due to which there is huge disappointment in this class.
In this regard, colleagues associated with the Non-Teaching School Librarian Promotion Front have also appealed to the Chief Minister, Education Minister and Education Secretary to direct the department to promote librarians from non-teaching to early. It is worth noting that the number of employees promoted to the post of librarian is less compared to other cadres and their promotion will not put much financial burden on the government.