BHUBANESWAR: The strike by teachers over their demands of equal salary for equal work, provision of full aid and facilities to the block grant teachers continued for the second day. More teachers are expected to join the protest at lower PMG road here from Saturday.The teachers, protesting under the aegis of Odisha School College Teachers’ and Employees’ United Forum, have been seeking revision in the newly implemented grant-in-aid system which the State Government introduced after abolishing the block grant system in October last year.
The teacher strike may intensify as the State Government is reluctant to implement the GIA system retrospectively as demanded by forum members. The new system has no service code depriving us of GPF and other facilities, while Government’s decision to implement GIA from this year will affect thousands of teachers as their service period will be counted from the current year, said a forum member.
Higher Education Minister Ananta Das, however, said the State Government introduced the new system as per the demand of teachers and bringing further changes in the new system will not be an easy task.
To a question on retrospective implementation of the system, the Minister said, “This may not be possible as Government always maintains uniformity while implementing a new system.”
Meanwhile, forum members said their strike will continue on Saturday and a meeting will be convened to decide future course of action. “Teachers from school and colleges are joining the strike on rotation basis to ensure that study at school and colleges is not affected. However, if our demands our not met all teachers will hit the streets leading to shut down of the educational institutions,” the agitating members threatened.