Bhubaneswar: Teachers under the banner of School Teachers Federation of Odisha (STFO) had a scuffle with the police at Lower PMG Square here today.
Reports said the Federation protesting the apathy of the state government in not fulfilling its demands went in a rally in the city to gherao the State Assembly and converged at the Lower PMG Square. However, the rally which moved towards the State Assembly was halted by the police. This resulted in a scuffle between the police and the agitating teachers.
Talking to media persons, STFO president Prakash Jena said the state government should at least respect the directive of the Supreme Court by providing equal salary to all categories of teachers as per the 7th Pay Commission recommendation.
He further said henceforth the agitation of the Federation will not be confined to the capital city. “We will intensify our agitation and spread it in rural areas which will subsequently turn into a mass agitation. We will give a fitting reply to the state government in the ensuing Panchayat polls if it fails to fulfill our demands,” he informed.
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The demands of the Federation are implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendation, equal work, equal pay, abolition of block grant provision, government status to fully aided schools and filling up of all vacant teacher posts.
On the other hand, the All Odisha 662 category of Private College Teachers and Staff Association has decided to begin its lockout stir from December 6 for fulfillment of its demands.
“We demand that the state government should abolish the block grant provision and bring all teachers and staff of private colleges under the grant-in-aid purview. Whenever we have stage agitation, the government has cleverly managed to skip our demands with a false promise. But with the Supreme Court’s recent ‘equal work, equal pay’ ruling, we hope that the state government will abolish the block grant system and adhere to the directive of the apex court,” Golakh Nayak, president of the Association told the media here.
He also informed that the Association will stage day and night agitation at Lower PMG Square for three days from December 6 for fulfillment of its demands.