India, July 20 -- Around 200 contractual employees working on project-based assignments at the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) headquarters in New Delhi have not received their salaries for the past four months, leaving many under severe financial stress and forcing them to borrow money, default on loan repayments and struggle to pay rent, children's school fees and other household expenses.

The affected employees are engaged under Project Approval Board (PAB)-approved programmes funded by the Union education ministry. Working across different NCERT departments, they are involved in school education initiatives under Samagra Shiksha, including digital education programmes such as DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructu...