Bhubaneswar, Jan. 27: At least 33 teachers from Boudh educational district will lose out on their house rent allowance (HRA) from next month.
“It has been seen that in all 33 cases, husband and wife are both teachers. Despite general administration department rules, they have been drawing rent allowances for two houses. This is illegal,” said a senior official in the department.
As per rules of the general administration department, if both the husband and wife are government employees and are posted at the same station, then one only of them is entitled to receive the house rent allowance. HRA for a teacher ranges anywhere between 5 per cent and 20 per cent of their basic salary. “There are various slabs. A teacher in Bhubaneswar or Cuttack will get 20 per cent as HRA while a teacher at Kalahandi it will receive 5 per cent HRA.
“The house rent allowance rate depends more or less on where the teacher is posted. For a teacher in Boudh, the salary comes around Rs 7,500. This means they will now receive Rs 500 less,” said the official. The school and mass education department had, on October 27, issued a notification in this regard.
All the directorates of the education department were directed to collect the list of such teachers. Finally, the block development officer and district inspectors were asked to identify couples who were “illegally” drawing HRA.
It has been decided that the HRA of one of the spouses will be stopped with immediate effect. With just Boudh reporting 33 such cases, it is assumed that there will be at least 2,000 such cases from across the state. “However, Boudh has been the only district to have furnished the list of such erring teachers so far. The process in on in other districts,” said the official.
There have been interesting cases such as the couple posted in bordering districts drawing HRA by using the excuse of living in different locations. However, as per the law, this too will be considered illegal, as teachers should be living within a radius of 8kms from the headquarters.
