Chandigarh, Mar 6 (IANS): Meeting a long pending demand of the teaching community, the Punjab cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday approved the regularisation of the services of 5,178 government teachers with full pay scales from October 1, 2019.

The cabinet also regularised 650 nurses of the Health Department as per probation rules. These contractual nurses had been agitating for some time for regularisation at basic pay.

According to a spokesperson of the Chief Minister's Office, the cabinet also decided that the services of those teachers recruited during 2014, 2015 and 2016 would be regularised at full scale on completion of their two-year probation.

The cabinet has reduced the probation period from three years to two years.

Further, the teachers would be assigned seniority from the date of completion of their probation period.

These teachers are currently paid Rs 7,500 per month. Their salary would now be fixed at a minimum of grade pay of Rs 15,300 per month till the time they are given full scale.