Teachers adamant on demand for full pay

Avneet Kaur
Jalandhar, October 13

Condemning the Director General of State Education’s (DGSE) orders of asking teachers to confirm their decision of accepting or rejecting the regularisation proposal with 65-75 per cent cut in their salaries by October 23, and issuing notice against the teachers for leaving ‘Parho Punjab Parhao Punjab” WhatsApp groups, teachers in large number protested at Amritsar today.

Teachers from Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Jalandhar went all the way to Amritsar on Friday night to lend support and protest against the Education Department.

They said: “The Education Department, without considering our situation, is adamant on it’s baseless policies.”

“In every state the salaries of government teachers have been increased every year, while in Punjab in the name of regularisation the state government is doing injustice with us by offering the salary of Rs 15,000,” they added.

They said they were in no mood to accept any deal, being offered by the department and will continue to protest till their demands were met.

Harpreet Kaur, a teacher from Jalandhar said: “Every person have its budget and expenditure fixed as per his/her income. Likewise, the teachers who were earlier getting Rs 42,500 as salary have fixed expenses as per their earning. Teachers have car, home loans etc to be paid, then how can a teacher, whose only earning is his salary can accept this proposal.”

Teachers, replying to the notice served to them for leaving WhatsApp groups, said: “Our salary has not been released from the last four months, therefore we cannot make our both ends meet.”

Teachers said no suspension orders, notices or any sort of inquiry could stop them from protesting.

They said, while protesting if any untoward situation occurs then the sole responsibility of that lies with the state government.