The invincible BJD Government may be facing shudders under its feet with the fire of serial farmer suicides refusing to die down. Added to its discomfiture, has returned the teachers’ ire which only a few months ago had created sleepless nights for the State Government.
The teacher’s disgruntlement, built up as it is over a long period, has raised its face as the Winter Session of the Assembly will begin from December 1. The agitation of the contract teachers may be a tell-tale sign of a bigger and fiercer stir by the teaching community cutting across their categories.
The reason: The Government has failed to live up to their expectations and since it returned them to their schools promising to form a new GIA policy, it has done nothing on the front.
The Naveen Patnaik Government’s Achilles heel could be the large-scale distress in the agriculture and education sectors. However, the State Government, despite having been in power for the last 15 years, has failed to do much to address the multifarious problems besetting the two sectors, in which the people at the lowest rung have an axe to grind. And, the double whammy for the BJD dispensation is that it is now facing jerks from both the two sectors.
The malaises afflicting the farming and education scenario of Odisha are deep-rooted and need to be addressed with greater sincerity. Sadly, the State Government in the last many years only took some piecemeal measures that only worsened the situation.
The Government is at its wit’s end as despite having declared several sops and convened a huge farmers’ meet at Bargarh, it has not been able to win the confidence of the debt-ridden farmers. As a result, they are committing suicides in increasing number creating great embarrassment for the Government. Given the enormity of the situation, it seems there is no instant solution in sight. Nobody has a clue as to how long this suicide trend will continue and the shrill wailing from the poor farmer’s huts would end.
To spell further doom for the Government, the teachers are now set to bounce back as they too, like the hapless farmers, do not find any streak of hope. The Government has been doling out just false promise and resorting to dilatory tactic to wriggle out of an impasse.
The worry line for the Government is it is not able to satisfy any single category of teachers. Starting from university to Block Grant college and school, the teachers are restive. Since they have been repeatedly deprived of their legitimate dues, they are up in arms against the Government. Especially, for the Block Grant teachers, many of whom are nearing the retirement stage, the entire service career has been spoiled thanks to the faulty grant policy of the Government.
Notably, the Block Grant teachers in primary and secondary schools had held a strike under a joint forum shutting down their schools demanding regularisation of service through implementation of Grant-In-Aid (GIA). The closer of the schools across the State had created much disenchantment as the students were deprived of class room teaching. The situation came to such a pass that the Chief Minister had to direct the authorities to resolve the issue forthwith.
A ministerial level committee which had been formed to look into the issue was asked to settle the issue. The committee assured the teachers that the Government would be implementing GIA within a few months and urged the agitating teachers to end their stir. However, nothing has been done yet to win the trust of the agitating teachers. Consequently, the secondary school teachers’ association has already started mobilizing people by holding meetings at various parts of the State for deciding on its next curse of action.
The Block Grant college teachers’ bodies, though had held agitation in the last Monsoon Session of the Assembly, they did not continue the stir for long assured of a move for formation of a new GIA policy soon. However, since nothing materialized till date, these teachers under 662 and 488 banners are also getting increasingly doubtful about the Government’s motive and are set to join the bandwagon for a stir.