Bhubaneswar, Aug. 26: Teachers who bring discipline to classrooms threw traffic out of gear for nearly an hour at the Master Canteen Square here today.
Members of the School Teachers' Federation of Odisha have been agitating at Mahatma Gandhi Marg for the past 17 days demanding government aid for block grant schools.
Today, they took out a rally, which was attended by thousands of protestors, from the railway station that took almost an hour to reach Lower PMG, where a demonstration was held.
Apart from totally paralysing the Master Canteen Square, the rally made things worse as most of the arterial converging at the square was also blocked.
Caught unaware, a large number of commuters were seen trying to find their way through the narrow alleys and by-lanes.
Abhijit Debata, a college student, had a hard time reaching his tuition class as traffic movement was choked at the Master Canteen Square because of the rally.
"I was going to my coaching class when I got stuck in the traffic. I could neither move forward nor backward," said Debata.
Buses originating from Master Canteen Square also got stranded. Though police personnel had been deployed in adequate numbers, they could do little given the mammoth size of the rally.
Assistant commissioner of police (traffic) Jatindra Panda said there were adequate cops to manage traffic during the rally. "The vehicular movement was diverted and regulated through other roads," said Panda.
This was not the only rally to have caused traffic congestion during the ongoing Monsoon session of the Assembly. There have been other smaller processions by several organisations that often throws traffic out of gear.
"This has become a regular affair during every session of the Assembly. Though the protestors have a democratic right to stage demonstrations, they should not create difficulties for commuters. The police should not allow them to take out a rally through one of the major intersections on the busy Janpath," said Suryamani Sahu, a commuter. The protestors justified the rally saying that the state government was yet to consider their demands.
"Several ministers of the state have justified our demands, but the state government is least concerned about our struggle that has been going on for the last 30 years. Our agitation would continue till the block grant system is abolished," said convener of the federation, Prakash Chandra Mohanty.
The teacher's agitation has hit at least 4,000 schools across the state. Besides federation members, the Gana Shikshak Mahasangh and Secondary School Teachers' Association have also been organising protests.
A seven-member ministerial committee was formed today to examine the block grant teachers' demand for full grant-in-aid. School and mass education minister Debi Prasad Mishra said that the final decision would be taken according to the recommendation of the committee.
In a related development, acting on a petition seeking order to declare the ongoing teachers' strike in block grant schools illegal, Orissa High Court has issued notices to four teachers associations asking them to clarify their stand regarding continuing the strike. The teachers are demanding regularisation of salary.
Nearly 3,90,120 students in about 3,735 block grant schools in the state are suffering as teachers are on an indefinite strike since August 10. Almost 28,000 teachers are engaged in these schools.
The court issued notices to the School Teachers' Federation of Odisha, All Odisha Lower Secondary Teachers' Association, Odisha Secondary School Teachers' Association and Block Grant Secondary School Teachers' and Employees' Association. Notice has also been issued to the chief secretary of the state.
"A division bench of Chief Justice D.H. Vaghela and Justice Biswanath Rath issued the show-cause notices on Monday and fixed September 2 as the next date of hearing," petitioner counsel Prafulla Kumar Rath told The Telegraph today.
