About 23K state govt employees show-caused
Kolkata: A day when a section of government employees who had resorted to hunger strike demanding dearness allowance (DA) at par with the central government withdrew their programme, the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education (WBBSE) show-caused a record 23,000 teachers for their absence on March 10, when a strike call was given on the DA issue.
The state Finance department had mandated attendance on the particular day except on very urgent medical grounds.
The showcause exercise by WBBSE was on the basis of reports received from the District Inspectors (DIs) of schools started on March 23 and according to sources, in the last three days 23,000 odd teachers have been slapped with such notice. The highest number of
teachers receiving such notice hailed from Nadia. “The show-caused teachers will have to reply within seven days to their respective DIs who will forward the same to us,” a senior Board official said.
The state government issued an order saying that all offices, including those provided with grants-in-aid by the state such as educational institutions shall remain open on March 10 and all employees will report for duty on that day and no leave will be granted.
WBBSE President Ramanuj Ganguly had earlier said that the Board only followed the state government’s recommendations on the issue.
“We went by the reports of the District Inspector of schools and heads of respective educational institutions about the presence of teaching staff on March 10 and implemented the directive of the state secretariat,” Ganguly said.
However, the agitators said that their movement will continue as before. They have attributed poor health conditions for the lifting of their hunger strike. The relay hunger strike kicked off on February 7 at Shahid Minar Maidan.
The hunger strike movement started on February 10.
The agitating teachers’ organisations will send an e-mail to President Droupadi Murmu and a mass e-mail will be sent to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Two mass rallies will be held from Howrah and Sealdah respectively on March 30 which will culminate at Shahid Minar grounds followed by a mass meeting there.
On April 10 and 11, they will sit on a dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.
