Cuttack, Nov 26: The Odisha School & College Teachers and Employees Coordinating Committee has demanded that the government fulfil its promises by including schools and colleges—where teachers have been working unpaid for the last 30 years—under the grant-in-aid system, providing pension and retirement benefits to retired and soon-to-retire teachers and education employees, and ensuring complete service regularisation for in-service teachers and staff.
In a press statement, the committee’s convener Ranjan Kumar Dash said that Odisha is the only state in India where teachers, after working for 30 to 40 years and shaping countless nation-builders, retire empty-handed. No other department has such an unjust system, yet this discrimination continues only for teachers and employees of newly grant-in-aid institutions.
While contractual and daily-wage workers of various departments receive some form of monthly honorarium, teachers and employees of non-grant-in-aid schools receive no financial benefits at all. The Chief Minister must intervene and ensure equal facilities for all.
Among the key demands of the teachers’ and employees’ associations are:
- Grant-in-aid for all eligible schools and colleges
- Service regularisation and pension for staff of newly grant-in-aid institutions
- Full grant-in-aid for schools that have been left out
- Restoration of the old pension scheme
- Raising the retirement age to 62 years
- Rectifying previous pay-grade anomalies
- Implementation of Seventh Pay Commission benefits for teachers
- Granting notional increments and seniority to contractual teachers
- Government takeover of private schools and colleges
- Providing all government facilities and benefits to students studying in such institutions
The committee warns that if teachers’ issues are not resolved, schools in their regions will be closed. If the government fails to address their concerns, they will take to the streets.
This warning has been issued by coordinating committee representatives including:
Ranjan Kumar Dash (Convener), Sukanta Kumar Behera (President), Akshaya Kumar Mishra, Bikram Kumar Das, Pramod Kumar Hota, Harekrushna Panigrahi, Ranjan Kumar Panda, M. A. Kasim Beg, Prashant Kumar Pati, Kalinga Keshari Pradhan, Suresh Chandra Das, Raja Osim, Nilamani Purohit, Braja Kishore Biswal, Ashok Kumar Mohapatra, Shankar Kumar Subudhi, Garuda Chandra Sahu, Rajalakshmi Behera, Jayanti Bala, Manikeswar Swaain, Ramakant Mohapatra, Pradeep Kumar Mangaraj, Nabakumar Panda, and Madhusudan De.
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