Other States - Orissa   

Teachers seek to draw MLAs’ attention to their demands

— Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

Solidarity: Students expressing support to the striking teachers in front of the Assembly in Bhubaneswar on Monday.

BHUBANESWAR: As the winter session of the State Assembly got under way, thousands of teachers squatted on the Mahatma Gandhi Marg trying to draw attentions of legislators speeding past the venue of demonstrations.

Every inch space on the 300-metre-stretch from Master Canteen Square to Assembly premise was occupied by the teachers and the venue reverberated with slogans against the State Government’s alleged apathy on Monday.

Teachers, who launched ‘fast-unto-death’ under the banner of All Orissa Un-aided Colleges and Employees Co-ordination Committee (AOUCECC) were joined by a group of students.

“The State Government has again hoodwinked us on the issues raised by us. We have spent the most productive years of our lives by imparting to students belonging to poorer section of society. But in return, we have been all along struggling for subsistence,” Golak Nayak, chief convenor of the AOUCECC, said.

Similarly, hundreds of contract teachers appointed in government high schools shunned their duties to join a mass rally demanding that they be given a better deal.

There were over a dozen of banners. But the appeal was same. Teachers alleged that the State Government claimed to have generated a lot of revenue after embarking on a fast industrialisation but it was not percolating to benefit people.

At least education, the basic infrastructure, which had been crumbling over a decade now should get the priority in the State Government’s agenda, they said. Movements of teachers gained momentum recently after police resorted to lathicharge to control agitating teachers at the headquarters town of Bargarh recently.

9Members of the All Orissa Non-Government College Teachers’ and Employee Coordination Committee (AONCTECC) desperately said they could no more carry forward their 22 years’ struggle further.

Other teachers’ association such as Aided 39 (+2) College Employees’ Association, Non-government Aided Degree Colleges (255) Employees Association and GIA Deprived Teachers and Employees Association vowed to make the State Government listen to their issues this time.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Armed robbery at bank
Fishermen mobilising support of people’s representatives
Show-cause notice to JK police in Nazia case
Pharmacy week celebrations
Teachers seek to draw MLAs’ attention to their demands
Five adjournments on first day of the session
Nandankanan pens another success story
Child reporters make their presence felt at Parab festival
A celebration with a difference
‘Sangeet Mahotsav’ from Nov. 22

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu