Mamata urges Centre, State to resolve PTTI crisis

Kolkata, Nov 29 (UNI) Opposition Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee today said the Centre and the state government should sit together and resolve the row over Primary Teachers Training Institutes(PTTI) imbroglio in West Bengal.

''The CPI(M)-led Left Front government had put some 75,000 PTTI students' future in dark because of a recent Calcutta High Court ruling that all the 138 PTTIs in the state are 'illegal' for not obtaining necessary approval from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

So we are asking the state government to get the Council's affiliation by paying them Rs 121 crore immediately'', Ms Banerjee told a rally, organised by the West Bengal Primary Teachers Training Union here.

She said it was the state government's responsibility to have necessary approval from the NCTE for running the PTTI. Now the Centre and State government should sit together and resolve the crisis, she added.

''The LF government has done wrong for not obtaining recognition from the NCTE, and therefore, the government should provide sufficient assistance to all the victims, (the PTTI students)'', Ms Banerjee demanded. She also claimed that some PTTI students also committed suicide in frustration.

''If the state government failed to solve the crisis, we will call on President Pratibha Devisingh Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in this regard,'' the Trinamool supremo said.

Before attending the rally, Ms Banerjee lit the candles in memories of those security personnel, foreigners and civilians killed in the terrorists' attacks in Mumbai. She also announced to observe ''martyre's day'''across the state from today.

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