Teachers' agitation rock Orissa Assembly

Bhubaneswar, Mar 17 (UNI) The ongoing agitation by contractual teachers today rocked the Orissa Assembly with members cutting across party lines urged the government to consider their demand and regularise their service.

Raising the issue during zero hour, Mr Anup Sai (Cong) said a grave situation had arisen in Secondary education.

More than 20,000 contractual High Scool teachers have been on a dharna in front of the Assembly for the past one week demanding regularisation of their service.

The teachers, he said, also threatened to boycott the coming High School Certificate Examination and not to participiate in the evaluation of answersheets, if their demands were not met.

Mr Sai urged the Speaker to direct the government to regularise the services of contractual teachers and fill up the vacancies by recruiting teachers from among the persons sitting idle after completing B Ed and CT course.

Mr Bikram Kumar Barma (BJD) said the demand of the teachers was justified.

There was no job security and no service rule for these teachers, he said and demanded that like the Sikya Sayaks, the government should announce that the job of contractual teachers would be regularised after they completed six years of service.

Mr Sambhu Naik (Ind), Mr Umesh Swain (Cong), Mr Pradeep Maharathy (BJD), Mr Nrusingh Sahoo (Cong), Mr Mahesh Sahu (BJP) and Mr Bimal Lochan Das (JMM) also demanded the government to regularise the service of contractual teachers.

Mr Narayan Reddy (CPI) wanted to know why the government was not recruiting the teachrs when 70,000 posts were lying vacant.

Mr Mohan Majhi (BJP) said the teachers today apprised the members of their problems.

He urged the Speaker to direct the government to solve their problem.

Earlier, around 200 agitating teachers were arrested while trying to break the police barricade and march towards Naveen Niwas, the residence of the Chief Minister, in support of their demand.

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