Bhubaneswar: The agitating block grant teachers went ahead with their plan of mass rally on Wednesday after their talks with the state government failed to yield results.
Thousands of teachers under the banner of All Odisha School and College Teachers' and Employees' United Forum staged protests at Lower PMG Square. Till now, the teachers had been staging protests before evaluation centres pressing for their six-point charter of demands.
On Tuesday, a meeting with finance minister Shashi Bhusan Behera, school and mass education minister Badri Narayan Patraand, higher education minister Ananta Das and the forum leader Prakash Mohanty was held.
Around 60,000 block grant teachers and employees of various schools and colleges of the state have been on indefinite strike since March 19. They are demanding issuance of a notification regarding withdrawal of the clause mandating submission of affidavit to get the grant-in-aid, along with fulfilment of six other demands.
The state government had cleared that teachers were only required to submit details in writing about their court cases, so that the government could be aware of all the pending cases and decide the future course of action accordingly. The higher education department has clarified that the teachers, covered under the newly framed Grant-in-Aid Policy, 2017, will not have to submit affidavits as sought earlier. But, the agitators seek an official notification to the same.
"The government is non-committal on their demand of withdrawal of the controversial affidavit proposed by them. We want an official notification and no more discussions," said Mohanty.
He further said they would continue their protests aggressively. "We are bent on our demands, and we will stick to it. We have been suffering since years and there has to be an end to it," he said.
The first phase of evaluation continued till April 14, and the second phase commenced from April 16 and will go on till 26.
At present, evaluation is being done at 56 centres across the state and 29 of them are e-evaluation centres.
