Jobless teachers take to the streets in Kharar

Tribune News Service

Mohali, September 28

Unemployed ETT-pass teachers today blocked the Chandigarh-Kharar flyover near Desu Majra village near Kharar. It led to huge traffic jam this evening, causing inconvenience to commuters.

The police had to divert the traffic towards other roads so that the commuters do not face inconvenience in reaching their destinations.

Earlier, the teachers had planned to gherao the residence of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in Kharar in protest against the authorities for continuously changing the ETT exam date.

As soon as the police came to know about it, they appealed to the protesting teachers that their matter would be solved in today’s meeting.

A meeting was arranged between the protesters, led by state president Deepak Kamboj and principal secretary Hussan Lal, in which a delegation of the teachers discussed its demands.

The protesters said after a continuous struggle of more than four and a half years, 2,364 posts were declared out of the 6,635 posts for ETT teachers, but the government made amendments to give a chance to outsiders.

They said the recruitment was still pending due to the policy of equal chance to outsiders. Instead of recruiting ETT teachers, the state government had postponed the exams thrice. They demanded that only ETT teachers should be recruited on these posts.

Deepak Kamboj said due to the dilly-dallying attitude of the state government, unemployed ETT teachers were either forced to climb atop overhead water tanks, jump in canals or resort to fast unto death.

Kamboj said their main demands included conducting examination for recruiting 6,635 teachers as soon as possible, give exemption in age limit to candidates who have crossed the age bar for enabling them to appear for exams and adding ETT posts of SC backlog to 6,635 posts of ETT teachers.