Traffic came to a halt at the Mahatma Gandhi Marg in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, on Sunday, November 27, as thousands of primary school teachers took to protesting there. Why? The teachers who gathered from across the state sought the fulfilment of their demands from the government.
The teachers have put forth a slew of demands, among which are the complete abolition of contractual appointments and annual increments during the first six years of employment for those who have already been hired under contract, before their regularisation. The group has also demanded salaries on par with the Central Government-appointed teachers, as per a report by PTI.
As per a report by Devdiscourse on the issue, another demand of the primary school teachers is the scrapping of the new pension policy and implementation of the old policy. Some of the protesters also alleged that they were being paid less than high school teachers, despite having similar qualifications.
After about four hours of demonstration, a delegation of the agitating teachers had a meeting with the education department officials at the state secretariat. However, "as of now, the government couldn't give them any assurance in view of the model code of conduct in place in the Padampur Assembly Constituency," a source at the Secretariat informed, as quoted in the PTI report.
