Agitating Block Grant Teachers Put Stir On Hold

Bhubaneswar: Agitating block grant teachers on Thursday put their indefinite strike on hold following assurance from the state government to look into their demands.

Representatives of All Odisha School-College Teachers and Employees’ United Forum met chief secretary Aditya Prasad at State Secretariate, where three demands raised by the members were discussed.

The chief secretary assured the forum members that the state government would consider their demands within three months and requested them to withdraw agitation.

“The forum, in its steering committee meeting, came out with a resolution to put their strike on hold and give a two-month ultimatum to the government for fulfillment of the demands,” forum convenor Prakash Mohanty said.

Teachers and lecturers will hit the streets again, if the demands are not met within the stipulated time period, Mohanty added.

On Wednesday, thousands of block grant teachers attended a mass convention at Mahatma Gandhi Marg here to put pressure on the government to fulfil their demands.

The block grant teachers had been demonstrating in front of all 56 Plus II answer sheet evaluation centres across the state over their six-point charter of demands, including issuance of a notification regarding withdrawal of a compulsory affidavit clause to avail grant-in-aid.

The teachers had boycotted the first-phase evaluation of Plus II answer sheets (from April 4 to 14) and also did not cooperate in the ongoing evaluation process that began on April 16.