Patna, Sep 5 (PTI) The Bihar Congress took out a “kafan march” here on Saturday demanding that the BJP government in the state provide teachers of non-funded educational institutes with a regular pay scale, which would ensure them a stable income.
Leaders claimed that several party workers, who had participated in the march from Patna’s Gandhi Maidan to the Shaheed Smarak near the Bihar Assembly on Teachers’ Day, were detained by police midway.
Patna Town SDPO Kamakhya Narayan Singh said 13 protestors were detained during the march and later released.
In a statement, the party said the protest march was taken out under the aegis of the Congress Seva Dal, a grassroots frontal volunteer organisation, to protest against the state’s 1981 Non-Funded Education Policy.
The policy was modified by the Nitish Kumar-led government in 2008 to usher in a performance-based grant system.
Under it, the Bihar government provides post-result grants to private or community-run educational institutions that largely sustain on students’ fees. The staff of these institutes do not have a regular pay scale, leading to unstable income.
The protestors demanded that the government immediately resolve the problems of teachers of those educational institutes, take a positive decision on their demands and eliminate inequality in the education system, it added.
Bihar Congress Seva Dal president Sanjay Yadav demanded a regular pay scale for the teachers in place of grants.
“We took out the ‘kafan yatra’, demanding the Bihar chief minister provide us at least a shroud. Before elections, then chief minister (Nitish Kumar) had assured us of a pay scale for such teachers, but neither he nor his successor could provide us that,” he said.
The Congress claimed that Yadav and other party leaders, including Afroz Alam, Rajesh Rathore and Ruchi Singh, along with hundreds of protestors, were detained by police.
Earlier in the day, Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, while addressing a gathering at Patna’s SK Memorial Hall on the occasion of Teachers’ Day, said the government was contemplating a new pay scale for teachers of unfunded schools by combining the internal resources of non-aided institutions and the government’s grants.
“We have decided to create a new system to combine their internal resources and the government’s grants to create a new pay scale, which will ensure justice for unfunded teachers,” he said.
The Congress’ Bihar in-charge Krishna Allavaru accused the government of “trying to suppress the voice of teachers” and said detaining teachers and their leaders on Teachers’ Day was an “insult to democratic values”.
“The government should resolve the problems of teachers. But instead of listening to them, it is adopting a repressive approach,” Allavaru said. PTI SUK NSD
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