People's Democracy

Teachers March to Raj Nivas At Port Blair

 

ON September 5, the Teachers Day, the South Andaman Teachers Branch of the Non-Gazetted Government Officers Association organised a march to Raj Nivas at Port Blair. In this march, hundreds of teachers, including a large number of women teachers, working at Port Blair and in South Andaman areas participated. The teachers were protesting against the apathy shown towards their various problems and demands by the central government and the Andaman & Nicobar administration. 

 

D Ayyappan, general secretary of the association, inaugurated the Raj Nivas March in front of the Directorate of Education at 5 p m. Addressing the teachers, he said that the government of India had been meting out step-motherly treatment to the government teachers working in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. While the upgraded pay under Part B of the Central Civil Services (Revised Pay) Rules 2008 has been allowed to the headmasters and other left-out categories of teachers working in Delhi, Kendriya Vidyalya Sangathan, Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti, etc, the same has been denied to the teachers working in Andaman & Nicoabr Islands.

 

S K Afsar Ali and Venkat Rama Rao, vice president and secretary respectively of the South Andaman Teachers Branch, led the Raj Nivas March.  The procession was stopped near the Raj Nivas Gate when a delegation of the association, led by its president, S C Biswas, went inside the Raj Nivas and presented a memorandum containing the demands to Smt Achla Singh, secretary to the lieutenant governor. Accepting the memorandum, she assured the delegation that the points raised by the association would be placed before the lieutenant governor for appropriate action.

 

Later on, T S Sreekumar and H L Prasad, assistant general secretary and vice president respectively of the South Andaman Teachers’ Branch, addressed the gathering.

 

The issues highlighted during the Raj Nivas March and included in the memorandum are as below.

 

(1) Removal of anomaly in the grade pay of headmaster (middle), headmaster (primary) and other left-out categories of teachers, viz, librarians, PETs, PSRTs, music teachers, craft instructors, etc. 

 

(2) Grant of ISDA during summer vacation to all the vacational staff of Education Department.

 

(3) Amendment of the recruitment rules to ensure single line promotion to all categories of teachers.

 

(4) Regularisation of ad hoc teachers from their initial appointments.

 

(5) Grant of financial upgradation to the left-out teachers under the earlier ACP scheme.

 

(6) Timely grant of financial upgradation under the modified ACP scheme.

 

(7) Award of ACP/MACP to the left-out teachers, viz, GTTs without BEd and PSTs without JBT. 

 

(8) Allotment of sufficient funds for settling the pending transfer TA bills.

 

(9) Timely confirmation of all categories of teachers.

 

(10) Arrangement of BEd training for qualified teachers.