Bhubaneswar, July1: Employees of the school and mass education department today expressed their resentment before the departmental secretary, Aparajita Sarangi, after she passed orders to withhold the salaries of two section officers.

The order came in the wake of the State Administrative Tribunal’s decision yesterday to stop the salary of Sarangi for failing to comply with the tribunal’s earlier instructions regarding payment of arrears to a teacher. She was apparently furious over the non-performance of the two employees — Jaya Kishore Mishra and Narayan Barik — in resolving the teacher’s payment issue.

Employees of the department said they had to deal with nearly 65,000 letters every year with a low manpower. “The workload in the school and mass education department is just too much to tolerate. We come to office at 10am and, sometimes, leave at 9pm. Even after devoting so much time for work, we are dealt with in an unfair way. She should not vent her ire on us,” said an official.

The employees said they worked under tremendous pressure and had to look into various issues such as settlement of pension cases of teachers, accommodation of various service rules, issue of grants, scholarships and settling disparities of salary of teachers in various categories of schools.

As the situation went out of control, Sarangi came out from her chamber and met the agitating officials. She assured that no vindictive action would be taken against them. Later, she also withdrew her decision to withhold the salaries of the two section officers. However, she urged the employees to stress on solving the problems of the teachers, particularly, the retired ones on a priority basis.

In another development, the secretary today produced herself before the tribunal, which pardoned her and revoked the order for stopping her pay.