HP to protect interests of PTA teachers, says Dhumal

Shimla, Apr 9 (UNI) Assuring the teachers appointed by Parent Teacher Association (PTA) to protect their interests, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal today said they will continue to discharge their duties till further orders.

Following large number of complaints received over PTA appointment by the previous government, the state government has constituted committees at college, senior secondary and lower level education institutions to scrutinise the record, he told a delegation of PTA teachers that called on him here.

Mr Dhumal said his government would work in a fair and an unbiased manner to ensure transparency in its functioning, while ensuring that their interests were also safeguarded.

The state government would fill 18,000 teaching posts in the state during this financial year and the PTA teachers were also eligible to appear in them, he said.

He said 50 per cent of these posts would be filled up batchwise and the remaining 50 per cent by open competition to ensure that youth with requisite degrees were provided employment.

Earlier, Congress leader and former Irrigation and Public Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur addressing the PTA teachers clarified that the previous government had failed to come out with a concrete policy on the PTA due to the early announcement of the assembly elections.

''Since the model code of conduct came into force in October when the issue was to be discussed in the state Cabinet, the government could not frame a policy for the PTA teachers,'' he added.

Addressing the PTA teachers, its president Vivek Mehta urged the government to reject the Shanan Committee report and said it was nothing more than a political document, which was prepared to provide an escape route to the government on the issue.

"The government should come out with a firm policy on the issue and provide grant-in-aid to the PTAs to ensure salaries are paid to these teachers as several of them were not paid their salaries for the last two years," he said.

Mr Mehta said the PTA teachers had decided to not take part in any recruitment process in the future.

UNI AS PS JS1930