After hours of nail biting wait over a meeting between the State Government and the teacher leaders, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik may have surprised and elated everybody last year by announcing abolition of the horrendous Block Grant system of which the BJD Government was the architect by its replacement with grant-in-aid (GIA), but still the teachers are not happy.
The reason is obvious. Under the new GIA policy, the employees’ seniority is completely ignored and their service is counted only since January 1, 2018, no matter who began his job when.
Though the agitating teachers had had several rounds of discussion with the top bureaucrats of the State, including the Chief Secretary,
the Development Commissioner, the Secretaries of Finance, law, School and Mass Education and Higher Education, apart from the School and Mass Education and Higher Education Ministers, thanks to bureaucratic conspiracy, the senior most teachers of thousands of schools and colleges who have almost rendered service for over 20-25 years are going to lose their seniority and all the benefits if they bite the bait of the new GIA.
The teacher leaders of schools and colleges who sat at the negotiating table with the Ministers and officials have opposed the system and repeatedly tried to convince how the new policy would not be acceptable, but their concern was not paid heed. Consequently, though the new GIA policy was announced with a big bang, the employees are not interested to avail the grant as accepting the new grant would be penny- wise- pound- foolish of them.
“With date of joining of service not taken into account, not only the salary would be too less, but many other benefits like pension, arrear, etc would have to be sacrificed. So the new GIA is even darker a law than the Block Grant,” opined a teacher.
Meanwhile, with hasty implementation of the new GIA, even releasing salary before the Cabinet approval, an attempt is made to create a rift in the teacher community. While scores of institutions have been released the new grant, still many are yet to receive it. Those who are steadfast on rollback of an affidavit clause to receive the new
grant and demand grant by validation of their entire service period have not applied for the new GIA and are going to start another bout of agitation soon, said sources.
“While the agitation of the teachers from the beginning of theacademic session would again disrupt the education of lakhs of students in thousands of high schools, 662 and 488 colleges, the unsavoury spectacle of teachers taking to streets would again have to be experienced in the State capital. This would also expose the skin of the State Government for making a high sounding but hollow policy and its failure to contain the stir of the teachers,” opined intellectuals here.