The BJP government on Wednesday resumed the transfer of teachers and non-teaching staff in government and aided schools, ending a suspension imposed by the previous Trinamool Congress government.

A notification issued by the state government and signed by an additional secretary said: "The period of such temporary suspension was extended from time to time and lastly extended up to 30th June, 2026....in view of the ongoing recruitment processes of assistant teachers and Group C and Group D staff conducted by the School Service Commission."

".... upon due stabilisation of the relevant ongoing process, it is deemed appropriate to restore normalcy in the administrative processes of transfer of teachers and non-teaching staff through the Utshashree portal," says the notification.

The school education department launched the Utshashree portal on July 31, 2021, to facilitate a transparent and error-free online transfer process for teaching and non-teaching staff in government-aided and government-sponsored primary, upper primary, secondary and higher secondary schools.

However, the portal has remained non-operational since September 2022 after the recruitment crisis emerged, sources said.

"With no fresh recruitment and teachers retiring through superannuation, many schools no longer had adequate subject teachers. In such a situation, transfers had to be suspended," an official said.

An education department official said the situation worsened after Calcutta High Court, on April 22, 2024, terminated the appointments of 17,209 teachers at the secondary and higher secondary levels in government-aided schools over alleged irregularities in the 2016 recruitment process conducted by the school service commission.

Around the same time, the services of 8,544 Group C and Group D employees were also terminated over alleged irregularities in their recruitment.

In April 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the high court's order and directed that fresh recruitment exams be conducted to fill the vacancies created by the terminations.

The Mamata Banerjee government held the recruitment examination for secondary and higher secondary teachers in September 2025 after a gap of nine years. Selection tests for Group C and Group D staff followed in March 2026, ending a decade-long hiatus.

"With the recruitment process for both teaching and non-teaching staff back on track, the transfer portal has been reactivated," an official said.