Protests by Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) employees over non-payment of salaries for three months may impact preparations for the first term board exams of class 10 and class 12 to be held in December and could even lead to a postponement of the exams if the dues aren't disbursed by the end of the week, sources said on Sunday.

JAC has been running headless since the end of former chairperson Arvind Prasad Singh’s tenure in September, and staff members have claimed that they have not received their monthly salary since then.

Last week, staff members of JAC staged a protest outside the JAC office at Namkum against non-payment of salary, and agreed to temporarily end their stir only after assurance from education minister Jagarnath Mahto, who said payments would be made soon.

However, there has been no development since then and JAC employees are planning to launch a major agitation in the days to come.

JAC has decided to conduct the first term of board exams for class 10 from December 7 and class 12 exams from December 9, 2021. The council has already started preparations for the exams and a detailed date sheet is expected to be released by the end of the week on JAC’s official website jac.nic.in.

“There are expenses involved in conducting exams. When the council has no authorised person to disburse our salaries, how do you expect it to disburse payments for holding the exams?” asked an employee involved in managing the class 12 board examinations under JAC.

“If our salaries are not disbursed by Monday evening, we will have no option but to protest. We had to spend the entire festive season without payment, but the situation is getting worse now as we don’t even have money to pay school fees of our children,” he added.

This is the first time that JAC will conduct board exams for class 10 and class 12 in two terms. The syllabus has been equally divided into two parts for each term. The first term exams will be based only on the first half of the syllabus and the remaining will be covered in the second part of the examination scheduled to be conducted between March 10, 2022 to 25, 2022 next year.

According to sources from JAC, at least 325 employees working at the council have not received salaries since September. Most of these employees manage the exams and ensure results are declared on time.